Introduction
Climate change is widely recognized as one of the most serious threats to human health and well-being in the twenty-first century. While its impacts are felt globally, the ability to withstand these effects is deeply unequal. High-income countries often possess the resources and infrastructure needed to adapt, whereas Indigenous communities are disproportionately affected. This inequality reflects a broader issue of environmental justice: although Indigenous peoples have contributed the least to the climate crisis, they bear its most severe consequences.
Compounding this vulnerability is a lack of adequate resources to prepare for and respond to climate-related disasters. This is a direct outcome rooted in histories of colonization, ongoing economic inequality, and political marginalization. For those with privilege, climate change may represent a temporary disruption; for many Indigenous communities, it threatens permanent losses to health, livelihoods, traditional lands, and cultural heritage, while significantly increasing the risk of displacement.
Why are Indigenous communities disproportionately affected?
Indigenous communities maintain deep cultural, spiritual, and economic connections to their lands; however, these lands are often highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Regions such as the Arctic, rainforests, low-lying islands, and arid environments are already experiencing rapid warming and more frequent extreme weather events. Because many Indigenous communities depend directly on local ecosystems for food, livelihoods, and cultural practices, environmental disruption threatens not only food security and economic stability but also long-standing cultural continuity. For example, extreme weather events can directly displace communities from their homelands, to which they have deep cultural and spiritual ties. For example, flash flooding can destroy crops, causing severe economic losses while also disrupting social structures and food systems. As a result, traditional diets are often altered, leading to inadequate nutrition and the worsening of existing health conditions.
Importantly, Indigenous vulnerability to climate change is not simply the result of geographic exposure. Rather, it is deeply shaped by historical and ongoing injustices that are often intensified by government action—or inaction. Chronic underinvestment in critical infrastructure, including clean water systems, housing, healthcare, and emergency preparedness, directly heightens climate risk by limiting access to essential services and effective disaster response. These systemic failures are rooted in deep structural inequalities that have produced persistent socioeconomic disadvantage and poverty. The enduring legacy of colonization—marked by land dispossession, cultural suppression, and the spread of disease—continues to shape present-day vulnerability. Climate change now compounds these historical harms, reinforcing unjust systems of inequality and posing an increasingly severe threat to Indigenous health, well-being, and self-determination.
Climate change also intensifies a wide range of health risks. Shifts in temperature and precipitation patterns increase the spread of vector-borne diseases, waterborne illnesses, and malnutrition. In Canada, residents of Acadia First Nation in Nova Scotia face heightened health risks due to their proximity to a junkyard that has long served as a dumping site for car parts, contributing to elevated cancer rates. These health threats are further intensified by limited access to healthcare services.
Examples:
Manitoba Wildfires
In June, severe wildfires spread across Manitoba, forcing the displacement of numerous nearby First Nations communities. Many of these communities lack sufficient firefighting personnel and adequate emergency equipment, leaving them with little choice but to evacuate as their homes and lands are destroyed. This situation reflects a broader failure of environmental justice: Indigenous communities are disproportionately affected by climate-related disasters, yet are often excluded from meaningful participation in climate policy and decision-making. In Manitoba, many First Nations are located not only in regions highly vulnerable to climate change, but also in close proximity to industries that emit fossil fuels and actively contribute to the conditions that drive these disasters.
Inuit Communities
In the community of Puvirnituq in Nunavik (Northern Quebec), hunters and fishers are now forced to wait significantly longer than in the past to harvest food safely. Travel traditionally takes place over sea ice, but extensive melting has made ice conditions increasingly unstable and dangerous. What were once reliable hunting months in October and November now require waiting later into the year, by which time fewer animals are available. Moreover, increased pollution has contaminated traditional Inuit foods such as seal and whale blubber, undermining cultural food practices.
In response to these growing threats, the Inuit community delivered a message at COP26 calling for greater inclusion of Inuit voices in global climate governance. Their appeal emphasized the urgent need for climate justice not only to protect the Arctic but to safeguard the planet as a whole.
Flooding in Pakistan
In the Chitral district of Pakistan, the Kalash community has experienced severe disruption from flash flooding, having been struck seven times over the past fifteen years. For centuries, the Kalash people have relied on farming, orchard cultivation, and cattle herding as their primary sources of livelihood. Today, climate change has significantly reduced agricultural productivity, forcing many families to purchase food rather than rely on their own harvests, while others have been compelled to migrate in search of employment. Early snowmelt in the surrounding mountains has further destabilized crop cultivation, and rising temperatures have introduced destructive pests such as grasshoppers, which accelerate soil degradation and erosion. Together, these climate-driven changes have threatened the Kalash community’s food security, economic stability, and cultural relationship with the land.
Rising Sea Levels in Pacific Islands
The southwest Pacific region has experienced increasingly severe droughts, extreme rainfall, and intensifying storms, with profound consequences for local Indigenous communities. In Vanuatu, two destructive cyclones caused widespread damage, while Samoa endured one of its hottest years on record, severely limiting outdoor activities and threatening livelihoods. In low-lying nations such as Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands, entire villages are now being relocated within national borders due to rising sea levels and climate-related erosion. These forced relocations not only threaten physical safety but also cause deep cultural disruption and the breakdown of long-established social structures.
Conclusion
Climate change is not only an environmental crisis but a profound issue of global inequality and justice.Indigenous communities across the world continue to experience the most severe consequences despite contributing the least to the problem. From wildfires displacing First Nations in Manitoba, to melting sea ice and contaminated traditional foods in Nunavik, destructive flooding in Pakistan’s Kalash region, and forced village relocation across the southwest Pacific, these realities reveal a consistent pattern of environmental disparity. The impacts of climate change are magnified by histories of colonization, political exclusion, and chronic underinvestment in infrastructure, healthcare, research, and emergency response, transforming climate risk into a direct threat to cultural survival, food security, health, and self-determination. Addressing this unequal burden requires more than emissions targets alone; it demands a commitment to climate justice that meaningfully centres Indigenous rights, knowledge systems, and leadership in climate governance. Without such inclusion, efforts to combat climate change will continue to reproduce the very inequalities they claim to solve, rather than building a truly just and sustainable future.
Edited by Callixte Baron and Norah Nehme.
