How to Be a Leader for Climate Justice | David Lammy and Justin J. Pearson | TED

Justin J. Pearson: David, it is so wonderful and fantastic

to be here with you.

I admire your leadership in the UK and across the globe

for the work that you do,

and so many folks in this room are being inspired by you consistently.

When you think about leadership in this movement for climate justice,

how would you characterize it at this time?

David Lammy: So look, I look at this through the lens of foreign policy.

We are in a tough geopolitical moment.

We've got the United States, obviously as the world's superpower,

but China rivaling now the United States.

We've got the emergence of these middle states

like UAE, where the next COP will be,

India and others.

And at this moment, there is a degree of short-termism,

particularly as populism enters politics in northern Europe,

in the United States and other places.

There is, I think, also a degree

of underestimating our populations

and social media and other is driving that.

And so I guess

there is a tendency to focus too much on small things

and not the big things that bring us together

as we challenge the politics that divides us

and doesn't bring us together.

JJP: Yeah.

You know, when I think about this movement and politics,

it matters so much to how we act

and what happens in our lives consistently.

So I really appreciate that.

DL: Thank you.

And tell us about your journey in climate and leadership.

JJP: Well, my journey started in Memphis, Tennessee, the greatest place on Earth.

(Cheers)

A lot of Memphis folks here,

with the Byhalia Connection Pipeline,

two multibillion dollar corporations came to our community,

called our community "the path of least resistance,"

decided they were going to build a multibillion dollar pipeline

while taking Black folks' land

and threatening over a million people's drinking water in the process.

And it was that fight at home

that got me involved in environmental and climate justice,

realizing that we are not the path of least resistance for anybody,

but we are the path of resilience for everybody.

(Applause)

And it is our community's proximity.

The folks like Clyde Robinson and Scottie Fitzgerald,

who refused to sell their land,

who refused to give in to corporations

that were saying that they were less valuable

because they didn't have titles behind their names.

It was that community that really showed me

that every environmental and climate justice fight is local

and it is based in principle

and in the people who commit to justice.

But those echoes, they resound pretty loudly

even from the quietest places.

And what we were able to see was the voices of people in Boxtown,

a community built by formerly enslaved African Americans

helped to launch an environmental justice movement in Memphis

that got great people, even like Vice President Gore,

to come to the hood and advocate alongside us about a racist,

reckless rip off of a pipeline, as he called it,

that was going to destroy our community.

And so it was that fight.

It was that fight that taught me about people power,

taught me about the importance of proximity,

and that when we fight, we can win.

When we fight, we do win.

(Applause and cheers)

And I think about that,

and I think about that in this context

of how do we continue to build this movement?

Because you talk about racial justice and people siloing,

you talk about environmental justice or climate justice and people siloing,

but climate justice doesn't get as much attention as, say,

police brutality or other things.

Why do you think climate justice hasn't reached sort of that level yet?

DL: Well, look, I think that's the paradox.

So the great story of the 20th century

is how so many people at the beginning of that century,

who had no rights,

won their rights by the end of the 20th century.

So if you think of women, subjugated,

the property of their husbands or their father

and you think of people like Emmeline Pankhurst,

you think of Black and brown people

and the work of Martin Luther King and Gandhi and others.

You think of LGBTQ people, ridiculed, ostracized,

and the work of Harvey Milk.

You think of disabilities.

By the end of the 20th century,

people gaining their rights for the first time.

But the danger is, at this point, that we retreat back into our silos,

that it's all about identity politics.

And the thing that can connect the dots is climate justice.

All of those communities suffering

under the umbrella of the climate emergency at this point.

And so there is this case,

if you think about who's crossing borders and fleeing continents,

it's Black and brown people.

Who is suffering in northern European, North American communities?

It's Black and brown people as well as Indigenous people.

So we've got to connect the dots now and join that fight

for climate justice.

Justin, how do you see that at this point?

JJP: I think, you know,

if we had cared where the polluters were placing their factories

and their facilities 40, 50, 60 years ago,

we wouldn't have the climate emergency we do now.

But see, it was because it was being placed in lower-income communities.

It was because it was being placed in Indigenous communities

and Black communities that people weren't paying attention.

And so our community ends up with 4.1 times the cancer average.

It's become a sacrifice zone, as Dr. Mustafa Santiago Ali called it.

We have sacrificed people in communities that have been politically,

economically deprived,

and we've told them that it's their fault.

And we've allowed people across our country

and across continents to suffer,

although they make the least amount of pollution.

And until we get proximate,

until we get close to the people who are suffering the most

and allow that to drive our decision making,

we are going to continue to be in a very difficult predicament.

But I believe that is where transformation

and where real opportunity exist for us.

It is in lifting up those voices, it is and bringing those folks

from the periphery into the center.

And it is only by doing that that we can really say that we are advocating

for climate justice and environmental justice.

And so when you think about building that type of movement,

you've got to have leaders, but you've also got to have followers.

And we've seen a lot of plans coming out of a lot of big entities

that isn't oftentimes garnering that followership.

What do we do about that?

DL: Well, look, in terms of the leadership piece,

you've got to have an authentic leadership that comes from somewhere real.

If I look at my own country, the United Kingdom,

many of you will know, we've had three prime ministers

in a very short space of time.

We had one who didn't even want to go to COP last year.

We have to be clear.

And that's why if my party wins the next election,

I'm praying that we will,

we have said there will be no more drilling for oil in the North Sea.

Done, finished, over.

(Applause and cheers)

It's got to be authentic, it's got to be real.

And we have to step up and help to lead alongside people.

And that means that we in the United Kingdom

have to get back to aid,

development, climate, being out there in the world again.

0.7 percent of GDP, of our money

going towards helping the poorest in the world.

We are committed to that as soon as the fiscal climate allows us to be.

That's the kind of leadership we now need.

Now, look, a lot of people,

a lot of young people are following your inspiration.

So what do you think?

JJP: I mean, the first follower --

y'all seen that? --

is an underrated form of leadership.

I think that was a good TED Talk.

The first followers are the people who help to build movements.

It's the folks who really show up and who speak up and advocate

and show others how to follow.

I'm fortunate to be in the position that I am,

but I am not here in and of myself,

it's because there's a movement of people,

a groundswell of an intergenerational, multiracial, multi-socioeconomic,

multiethnic, multi-sexual orientation movement of people

who are advocating for justice.

and that is what is required.

It isn't that we have silos,

it's that we build a movement big enough for everybody,

everybody in this room,

everybody outside this room,

everybody that wants to be in this room,

everybody that can't be in this room.

That is how we build

and that is how we grow and that is how we develop.

And we're seeing that in so many great places in this country,

but also around the globe.

Dave, talk a little bit about that.

DL: There's a lot going on that I see.

I'm excited by what is coming from the fringe into the center.

So you start with Amerindian people asking for their rights, saying,

"Please don't cut down our forests."

You then get this momentum towards ecocide,

which can be as big as the UN coming together

to declare genocide wrong at the end of the Second World War.

Now we see small island states picking up that issue,

countries like France and yes, we in the opposition,

if we form a government,

we want an ecocide law

to make sure that people can't cut down our rainforests.

You've now got these initiatives like Bridgetown

and Mia Mottley leading that force in Barbados saying, yes,

we have to change global finance.

It's time for the big boys to get real

about the money that people need in smaller economies

and less developed economies.

And then in the country that my parents are from, Guyana,

this is a country that has not cut down its rainforests,

must not cut down its rainforests.

It’s hugely important there in the Amazon basin.

And we have to support those Indigenous people

at a time when the country has discovered oil.

And I'm seeing initiatives there, on the ground,

every single day of the week.

And I have my own conservation center, Sophia Point.

So right around the world, things are happening.

Yes, we must have outrage,

but we must have optimism as well, it seems to me.

Now I turn to you.

Here in the United States, big global superpower,

we've got Joe Biden,

things have accelerated.

What do you see from where you're sitting?

JJP: I applaud the Biden administration on so much.

And there's more that we can do as the United States of America

with the amount of resources, power, the access that we have,

we can help to be more of a leader in solving the climate crisis

and declaring a climate emergency.

We've seen some progress.

The Inflation Reduction Act put 40 billion dollars

dedicated toward environmental justice in particular.

The Justice 40 Initiative dedicated 40 percent of federal resources

going to underserved communities that have been left out

of a lot of money for a long period of time.

We're seeing some progress,

but then we get a debt ceiling reduction deal

that says the Mountain Valley pipeline can be expedited

because a senator wants that.

And so while we have so much hope in legislation,

the reality is it can't stop there.

It's the organizers like Dr. Crystal Cavalier and Jason Keck

of the Occaneechi tribe in North Carolina

who continue to resist and who continue to organize

because the institutions do not change in and of themselves.

It is what's happening outside of them,

it's the people who organize and who mobilize and who activate.

And that is what inspires me and motivates me so much

about the environmental and climate justice movement in this country.

They're going to get us off this stage pretty soon, David.

But as you look at the leaders of the present

and the leaders of the future, what advice do you have?

What recommendation do you have for how we chart a climate just future?

DL: Find the common ground.

There are people beyond this room, beyond this movement,

who aren't with the page just yet.

So find the common ground.

We need less bad faith in politics and more good faith in politics.

And hold these two things.

So much that is good starts on the margins.

It starts with rebellion.

It starts with campaign.

It starts with civil disobedience.

But this is also a moment

where the climate emergency is moving into the mainstream.

And that is exciting.

It's the corner of our economy.

It's the corner of our security.

It's the corner of our prosperity.

So you've got to hold both at the same time.

That is what leadership requires.

Let's end with you, come on, add to that.

JJP: Well, I think we need a courageous moral imagination.

We know of the world that is possible that is not yet.

We have the vision where everybody has clean water and clean soil

and clean water to drink,

and we have to put our God hands and our God feet

and our God heart into this movement.

The resistance will always remain,

but so will the persistence of the people who are in this room.

And that is what gives me the most courage and the most hope,

not just for ourselves,

but for the generations of people we will not know

that will live into that vision that we create together.

And I'm so glad to be a part of that movement with you

and with you, David, I love you.

(Cheers and applause)