Greta, Gaza And Why Climate Justice Is Social Justice

-OpEd-

SÃO PAULO — While still aboard the Madleen boat, part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition en route to Gaza to raise awareness about Israel’s blockade on humanitarian aid, Swedish activist Greta Thunberg responded to an interview question about how the fight for Palestine connects to the climate crisis she has long warned about.

“For me, there is no way of distinguishing the two. We cannot have climate justice without social justice. The reason why I am a climate activist is not because I want to protect trees. I’m a climate activist because I care about human and planetary well-being, and those are extremely interlinked,” she said in the interview with Democracy Now last week.

“For example, when we see the genocide in Gaza, of course, there are some very obvious links, that ecocide, environmental destruction is a very common method used in war and to oppress people. But also, it should be much simpler than that. No matter what the cause of the suffering is, whether that is CO2, whether that is bombs, whether that is state repression or other forms of violence, we have to stand up against that source of suffering,” she explained. 

“And if we pretend to care about the environment, if we pretend to care about the climate and our children’s future, without seeing and acknowledging and fighting against the suffering of all marginalized people today, then that is an extremely racist approach to justice that excludes the majority of the world’s population,” she concluded.

Thunberg first rose to international fame as a teenager, staging lone, silent protests outside the Swedish parliament demanding government action on climate change. Her actions drew other young people to her cause, eventually sparking massive climate marches around the world.

She’s long been a target for backlash from authoritarian leaders and climate deniers. Jair Bolsonaro, then president of Brazil, once dismissed her as a “brat.” Now, for her outspokenness on Gaza, U.S. President Donald Trump has labeled her “strange” and “angry.” Israel’s government mocked the Freedom Flotilla’s campaign, calling it a “selfie boat.”

But Greta and her fellow activists — including Brazilian Thiago Ávila, who remains detained in Israel — weren’t simply aiming to deliver aid (which was largely symbolic). Their goal was to shine a spotlight on the fact that, under Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s orders, Palestinians face the very real threat of starvation.

Environmental devastation in Gaza

Greta is right when she says ecocide is used as a weapon of war. The environmental devastation unfolding in Gaza could make any future recovery — if and when the war ends — far more difficult.

Several recent studies have detailed how Gaza’s natural resources are being systematically destroyed. Satellite images captured during a brief ceasefire earlier this year revealed that 80% of the region’s trees had been cut down — both by bombings that turned green spaces into craters, and by desperate residents who burned wood to stay warm after losing access to heating. That’s according to a report by Yale Environment 360, a publication of Yale University’s School of the Environment.

The piece also refers to a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report released last June analyzing the environmental impacts of the conflict. Even though the data was still preliminary, the findings were dire.

The oil polluting the planet is also fueling the massacre of the Palestinian people.

Military machinery and widespread deforestation have stripped and churned the topsoil, reducing its fertility and increasing the risk of desertification. Water treatment and sewage facilities have been damaged or destroyed, resulting in the daily dumping of around 130,000 cubic meters of untreated sewage into the Mediterranean Sea.

The report also details widespread destruction of water infrastructure and waste management systems, as well as the loss of more than 25% of Gaza’s coastal wetlands — critical ecosystems for both marine and terrestrial life.

It’s estimated that up to 39 million tons of rubble — much of it laced with toxic materials like asbestos, lead, and cadmium from destroyed buildings and solar panels — are now contaminating Gaza’s soil, groundwater, and surface water.

The 50-page document paints a grim picture of widespread, interconnected environmental damage — to water, soil, air, and biodiversity — that compounds the humanitarian crisis and demands that any reconstruction effort must include environmental remediation from the outset.

Exacerbating the climate crisis

But the devastation doesn’t stop there. The war itself is exacerbating the climate crisis. A Guardian article published in May cited a study estimating that in the first 15 months alone, the conflict generated more greenhouse gas emissions than the annual emissions of both Costa Rica and Estonia combined.

“Hamas bunker fuel and rockets account for about 3,000 tonnes of CO2e [carbon dioxide equivalent], the equivalent of just 0.2% of the total direct conflict emissions, while 50% were generated by the supply and use of weapons, tanks and other ordnance by the Israeli military (IDF),” the article said, citing the study.

It’s no surprise, then, that this week the Climate Observatory, a Brazilian network of environmental NGOs, issued a public appeal to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to halt oil exports to Israel. They cited a report by Oil Change International showing that Brazil is among Israel’s top five crude oil suppliers.

“The oil polluting the planet is also fueling the massacre of the Palestinian people,” the group warned. “There is no such thing as climate justice without the protection of human rights. A global community that can’t stop a real-time ethnic cleansing happening in plain sight will also be unable to confront the climate crisis.”

That says it all.