Black and brown communities ‘left out of climate conversations’

Valencia Gunder is an activist from Florida, where she helps get supplies and resources to people who have been hit by hurricanes and flooding.

She’s been attending COP27 with the Black Hive, a climate and environmental justice group that is part of the Movement for Black Lives, to advocate for her community and communities like hers.

“Black and brown communities are usually left out of these conversations,” she says.

Gunder is pushing for climate resiliency – making money and information available to people around the world that need it most, so they can prepare for climate change.

The effects are “going to keep coming”, she says, “and it’s going to be black communities, brown communities, undocumented communities and our elders who will be impacted by this the most.”

Valencia would like to see policies to tackle what she calls “climate gentrification” – where lower-income people are pushed out of their neighbourhoods as properties and areas that can withstand the impacts of climate change increase in value.

After one hurricane hit the southwest of Florida, she says she met a mother who said she had lost her two sons to floodwaters because they couldn’t swim. “It’s so sad that our people even have to swim, and that nobody was there to share her story,” she says.