BACKGROUND

The world’s wealthiest colonial countries have burned most of the carbon that is driving climate-change today. And most of the people forcibly displaced by droughts, floods, storms and fire are the ones who have contributed the least to the crisis. Rich countries can begin to pay their climate debts by welcoming migrants and refugees, with status on arrival and citizenship for all.

“We need to imagine a borderless world,” wrote our Programs Director and migrant justice organizer, Maya Menezes. At The Leap, we focused on the intersections between climate and migrant justice by:

• Helping people understand the climate debt that rich countries owe to the ones most impacted by climate change;
• Celebrating the essential, low-carbon care work done by so many women and migrant workers: child and elder care, teaching, cleaning, nursing, and farming while joining the calls for status, labour protections and safe workplaces
• Showing how right-wing leaders use racism and anti-migrant rhetoric to divide the progressive majority, and popularize tiered and unjust immigration systems that keep us from winning the world we need.