Guide to climate justice for artists and collaborators

What do we mean by climate justice?

Climate justice is a term that describes how the impacts of and responsibility for climate change are highly unequal. Those who are worst affected by climate change are the poorer and more disadvantaged. These are generally those who have contributed least to the greenhouse gas emissions that cause it. This includes poorer nations, ex-colonies or indigenous peoples internationally, while in Scotland it includes working class people, disabled people, ethnic minorities and others.

Climate change also results from and exacerbates existing inequalities and injustices like colonialism and inequality, as recognised by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Therefore, action on climate change needs to be fair and equitable and should counter rather than worsen existing inequalities. Climate justice has been championed by grassroots campaigns for decades and is now recognised by the Scottish Government as part of their own climate change policy.

The worst inequalities and injustices associated with climate change tend to occur on an international level, between richer nations that have contributed more to the causes of climate change and poorer nations that have contributed less and are less able to adapt to its effects. For example, the whole continent of Africa has only produced 3% of all greenhouse gas emissions and yet the majority of countries most vulnerable to climate change are in Africa. Key international climate justice issues include the legacy of colonialism, reparations from richer nations to pay for loss and damage occurring in poorer nations as a result of climate change, and the rights of indigenous peoples. You can read more about international climate justice issues on Julie’s Bicycle Creative Climate Justice ‘Around the World’ web page.

For those working in Scotland, it can be hard to know how to engage meaningfully with these issues on an international level. However, there are issues at play here in Scotland that are both local and connected with international issues. Examples include the importance of a ‘just transition’ for workers in the oil and gas industry, addressing fuel poverty, supporting island communities that are facing climate impacts first and worst. Other issues include the impacts of Scotland’s fossil fuel industry on communities around the sites at Grangemouth and Mossmorran, the so-called ‘Green Lairds’ accused of land-grabs in the highlands for carbon sequestration programmes, as well as Scotland’s coal heritage and role in the industrial revolution and British empire. You can read more about these issues in our ‘Why does arts and culture need to think about climate justice?’ post [ADD LINK].

Why are arts & culture and climate justice connected?

In The Great Derangement, author Amitav Ghosh argued that the arts struggled to engage with climate change compared to other important contemporary issues like racism and sexism. He suggests this is because of their direct social quality compared to the more impersonal nature of climate change. The lens of climate justice shows that these issues are actually connected. Climate change is connected to racism because we know that black people are worse affected by climate change on average than white people. Approaching climate change through the lens of climate justice keeps it connected to immediate social issues and allows us to utilise the strengths of the arts that Ghosh highlights.

Ultimately, climate justice demonstrates that the technical and scientific aspects of climate change cannot be separated from cultural, ethical, political and social issues. This points to a stronger role for arts and culture. Addressing climate change is not only about delivering technical solutions (although these are hugely important). It is about addressing social wrongs, providing routes for participation and developing new ways of thinking; all areas where the arts can play clear roles. Evidence from Climate Outreach suggests that approaching climate change through these social issues can actually be a more effective way of engaging people.

Here are a few examples of ways that arts and culture can help to address climate change in a fair and just way:

Demonstrate links

The ways that climate change results from, links to and exacerbates other issues can be difficult to grasp or may not be immediately obvious. Artistic methods can be an effective way of engaging with more nuanced and diverse ways of understanding climate change. The arts can also encompass ambiguity and unresolved questions that do not have easy answers.

Empower communities

The arts can provide a way to increase capabilities, confidence and social capital, which is needed to allow underprivileged communities to participate in work on climate change. Underprivileged groups in society have relevant knowledge and lived experiences but may lack, or feel they lack, the skills or social capital to use these to participate in climate policymaking or advocate for change. Creative projects run by museums or others can provide a way to help build these.

New audiences

Everyone in Scotland should have the chance to influence work on climate change, but we know that certain demographics are much more involved than others. The arts can provide ways into new communities, drawing on the understanding of local artistic practitioners about the best ways of framing issues and designing artistic methods of drawing people into conversation. Cultural organisations like libraries act as important community hubs that can provide ways to develop networks and trusting relationships that are essential for engaging audiences meaningfully.

Platform voices

Climate change is still regarded by many as a middle-class, white, ‘western’, issue. The arts can offer a platform for a wider range of voices and highlight stories of the many climate activists who do not fulfil this stereotype. This can be at its most effective when artists and climate activists work in direct collaboration. The arts can also provide a way to platform environmental activists and artists from beyond Scotland, especially those based in areas that are facing the worst effects of climate change, often known as ‘front-line voices’.

Procedural justice

This term describes how work on climate change should have fair procedures as well as fair results. So, to make sure climate policy is fair and effective, it needs to be designed with a wide range of stakeholders that include those worst affected by climate change. Traditional methods like consultations often struggle to get responses, especially from more disadvantaged groups. Artists and artistic practices can play a role in engaging meaningfully with communities to understand their perspectives and provide routes for these to influence policy.

Case studies

These examples all come from around Scotland. There are many more examples from around the world and we will highlight some links to further resources about these at the bottom of this guide.

The Bush

The solo show, written and performed by Alice Mary Cooper, is based on the true story of thirteen 1970’s ‘housewives’ who battled for 10 years to save bushland in Sydney. The show celebrates this moment in history while speaking to feminist movements and the current context of the climate crisis.

The Cheviot, the Stag, and the Black Black Oil

The play by John McGrath was first performed in 1973, touring around community centres across Scotland. The play presents 200 years of Scottish history, linking the Highland clearances through to the villages that were being cleared at the time to make space for North Sea oil infrastructure. The play includes a mixture of fiction and factual accounts and is notable for its participatory character, with songs that the audience are encouraged to join in for and a closing call to action.

Climate Change Creative

A project from artist Fadzai Mwakutuya used digital methods to platform work from the Global South and Zimbabwe especially. She worked with Zimbabwean artists and created a website where people could submit visual art that engaged with climate change. Artworks were shared through an online gallery and presented at poster exhibitions during the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow.

Dundee Urban Orchard

A collaborative project between artists Jonathan Baxter and Sarah Gittins and local communities that supported the planting of small-scale orchards across the city of Dundee. Alongside the creation of orchards, the project included participatory events, workshops and arts exhibitions with an emphasis on community involvement. The project aimed to better connect people with their food and consider social, environmental and economic sustainability together. Community involvement and empowerment played an integral role in the project, as all orchards were designed and maintained collaboratively. Read our case study about the project. [ADD LINK]

The Fifth Giant (or what would you do?)

Caithness-based Lyth Arts Centre worked with Sheffield-based arts collective The Bare Project on this project around land use and climate change in the Highlands. They engaged in conversations with residents and in response to their ideas created the characters of four ‘giants’ that embodied the different forces acting on the area. At a food and storytelling event at a local community hall, they presented the giants and had people create their own storytelling around these characters before considering what a fifth giant that embodied the power of the community could achieve. Watch a film about the project [ADD LINK].

From the forest to the concrete (to the forest)

A film by Barbadian-Scottish artist Alberta Whittle exploring the legacy of colonialism and its relationship with climate change. The film uses footage of the 2019 Hurricane Dorian on the Bahamas, an extreme weather event made more likely by climate change. Watch Alberta Whittle in conversation about the film.

Midlothian Climate Beacon

The National Mining Museum Scotland and British Geological Survey worked together on a series of events that would show the relevance of climate change to the local community. They were particularly interested in working with ex-coalminers that the museum has a strong relationship with to show how they can have a place in climate change movements.

A New Environmental Impact Assessment: environment, imagination and aesthetics

Artists Jo Hodges and Robbie Coleman and researcher Claire Haggett worked together to understand how rural communities felt about the construction of new wind farms close to their homes. They worked closely with residents near to the site of a proposed new wind farm and used a range of creative activities to build understanding of their values and connection to the place. This could in theory be integrated into the environmental impact assessments that are carried out when planning such construction projects. Read our case study about the project. [ADD LINK]

Offshore

Platform London worked with Pacifique Pictures and director Hazel Falck to create a documentary film about the offshore oil and gas industry. The film shares the perspectives of workers in the industry and communities in Aberdeen, showing how they see the industry currently and what will be needed to ensure a fair transition away from fossil fuels. Learn more and watch the film on the project website.

Phone Call to the World

The project from Scottish Youth Theatre created connections between young people from Scotland, South Africa, Palestine, England and India. They worked together to learn about climate change and how it was affecting each of their locations, and produced multimedia artworks that were hosted on an online platform and presented at an exhibition in Glasgow. The project foregrounded the voices of young people, who will be worse affected by climate change than older generations, and explored how climate change interacted with other pressing issues in each of the locations.

Positive Imaginings

Rowanbank Environmental Arts and Education worked with primary school children in Craigmillar, Edinburgh, one of the city’s poorest neighbourhoods. They created a ‘cycling circus’ and ran workshops in the local woodland as a means of teaching the children about climate change and providing opportunities for them to share their perspectives. Contributions from the children were recorded and turned into a soundscape that was widely distributed and shared during the COP26 United Nations climate talks in Glasgow. Read more about Postitive Imaginings and watch a film about the project.

Possible Dialogues

This project brought together Colombian arts organisation Más Arte Más Acción, the Organisation of Indigenous Peoples of the Colombian Amazon (OPIAC), and Scottish partners including the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh, Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow and artist duo Walker + Bromwich. They worked together to produce films that document the experiences of climate change by members of OPIAC and hold screenings and discussions in venues in Scotland that would build understanding between the Scottish and Colombian contexts. Read more about Possible Dialogues and watch the films.

The School of Plural Futures

The project was organised by ATLAS Arts in collaboration with artist Emmie McLuskey, The Skye Climate Action Group and eight contributors across Skye and Lochalsh worked together with the aim of building an alternative school to speak about the reality and potential of life for young people (aged 16-25) living in the area. The school took the form of a series of gatherings that created spaces to think through and respond to the intersecting challenges of the climate crisis and social injustice in a collaborative and supportive environment.

Storm Stories

The Met Office and Làn Thìde (a partnership between cultural and climate-focused organisation in the Outer Hebrides created as part of the Climate Beacons project) developed this project to integrate local voices into plans for the Outer Hebrides to adapt to climate change. They organised events in English and Gaelic at venues around the islands where people could map their experiences of new, unusual and extreme weather and share stories. They also held creative writing workshops and worked with artist Sandra Kennedy to develop a ‘climate storyline’ for the islands.

The Stove Network

The Stove Network is a membership-based arts-led project contributing to the regeneration of Dumfries. The Stove aims to use the arts to engage and mobilise people as agents of change for themselves and the society and places they live in. Based in the main square in Dumfries, the Stove is working through a range of projects and initiatives connecting with local issues, engaging residents in imagining and building futures. This includes building understanding of flooding as a growing risk for the area and developing capacity to prevent and respond to floods. Read our case study about the project. [ADD LINK]

This Is It

This music video was created by MC Johnny Cypher and a collection of other Glasgow-based rappers as part of the Let It Grow project. The MCs highlight experiences of climate change in Glasgow and emphasise the importance of including working class voices in climate change movements. Watch the music video.

Velocommunities

Bike For Good’s VeloCommunities project aimed to engage people on the benefits of cycling for tackling climate change as well as for the wellbeing of individuals and communities. As part of the project, embedded artists Lewis Hetherington and Geraldine Heaney worked closely with the Bike for Good community to produce a film creatively documenting work at their hub in Govanhill, Glasgow, and its broader significance. Govanhill is one of Scotland’s most ethnically diverse neighbourhoods and the film aimed to amplify the voices of those who are typically less represented in media coverage concerning climate change. Read our case study about the project. [ADD LINK]

Tips on how to approach an arts-led project that engages with climate justice

There is not one correct way to go about this. You may be thinking about creating artistic work, running public engagement activities, embedding artists within climate change organisations, or finding creative ways to advocate for better policies on climate change. You may be explicitly focusing on climate justice or just touching on it. The steps below are designed to help you think about what approach works best for you, consider the decisions involved and avoid common pitfalls.

What are you best placed to work on?

What issues feel most pertinent in the area you are based or tour to? Who are your existing audiences? Think about how you can engage with climate justice issues in ways that are especially relevant. This might mean thinking about a just transition for Aberdeen’s oil workers, engaging with land rights in the Highlands or considering Glasgow’s colonial-industrial history for example. Climate justice relates to a wide range of issues, so don’t try to cover everything. Pick something specific to engage with closely.

What expertise and experience do you have? Think about the skills that you or your team have and where these can best be applied. For example, you might have experience on working with poorer communities or on showcasing artists of colour. It is also worth thinking about what areas you do not have experience of. If you do not have any lived experience of the issues you want to engage with, you might want to focus elsewhere or find collaborators who do.

What do you want to achieve?

What outcomes are you looking for? Do you want to develop understanding of lesser-known climate justice issues or connect local social issues to climate change? Do you want to provide a route for underrepresented voices to be heard? Do you want to empower your audiences to act locally or provide routes for them to meaningfully influence change? All these questions will influence what kind of work you want to create.

Who do you need to work with?

Who are your key collaborators? It is important to have the right expertise to properly address the issues that you are focusing on. This might mean finding artists with an interest, lived experience and/or strong local connections. It might mean finding researchers with an understanding of the issues and how to communicate them. It might mean connecting with local community groups or campaigners working in the area.

How are you working with your audiences? Will you be working actively with participants to get their input and perspectives, either while in the planning stages or as part of the artistic work itself? The nature of your audiences also affects what you might focus on. For the wealthy, it makes sense to emphasise reducing their own carbon emissions. For others, we should be empowering them to influence action on climate change.

How can you improve equalities, diversity and inclusion?

How can you remove barriers to participation? When creating work that engages with issues of justice, it is important to think about how this also applies to the process as well as the message. This means taking steps to remove barriers to participation for audiences. These could be physical, financial, social or psychological. See the guide to climate justice for cultural organisations for advice.

Who are you platforming? The same principle also applies to those who are platformed through any artistic work produced, whether it be actors who are put on stage, local activists showcased through a film, or artists whose work is featured in an exhibition. Take steps to showcase people who are representative of the full diversity of Scottish demography and those who have lived experience of the issues being presented. This takes more time but has long-term benefits for the quality and effectiveness of what you do as well as embodying principles of justice.

How are you engaging with the issues?

What kind of language are you using? Engaging with climate justice does not require complex terminology (although this is useful in the right context). It does not even require using the term ‘climate justice’. Think about how to frame the issues in ways that most people understand. For example, a survey of offshore oil workers found that over 90% had never heard of the term ‘just transition’ but nevertheless supported the ideas behind it. Climate Outreach found that those with centrist or centre-right political views were put off by the word ‘justice’, preferring ‘fairness’ instead.

How are you balancing honesty and optimism? The climate crisis is severe and affecting some much worse than others. It is important to show this while also highlighting solutions and ways to act. Used correctly, climate justice thinking can provide clear and specific routes for action. Avoid overloading people and showcase positive stories as well as the issues.

Are you actually engaging with climate justice? As the term climate justice is more frequently used, the risk of misuse increases. Avoid using climate justice terminology unless you are genuinely engaging with issues of justice. If not, it is fine to simply talk about climate change.

How will you know you have been successful?

How will you tell if you have achieved what you wanted? This will probably involve getting feedback from those involved to understand your impact. This might not necessarily involve facts and figures; it could be as simple as having conversations and recording what people say.

How will you take on board learning and feedback for future work? Long-term thinking is especially important for work on climate change. How can a project form part of a longer-term process of change? Where there benefits that you did not predict in advance? How can you carry learning forward?

Useful organisations and networks

• 2050 Climate Group: Youth-led charity working on empowering young people to act on climate change.
• Climate Outreach: Research organisation focused on communication and public engagement around climate change.
• Community Energy Scotland: Charity supporting the development of community-owned renewable energy infrastructure in Scotland.
• Community Land Scotland: Organisation representing community landowners in Scotland and advocating for increased community land ownership; frequently explores overlaps with climate change.
• Democratic Society: Organisation working on improving civic participation in decision making about policy; organised Scotland’s Climate Assembly.
• Disabled Artist Network: A resource for finding disabled artists in Scotland, run by Drake Music Scotland.
• Edinburgh and the Lothians Regional Equality Council: One of several organisations established to promote equality across all protected characteristics in different regions of Scotland; organises environmental projects.
• Energy Action Scotland: Organisation focused on addressing fuel poverty in Scotland; frequently comments on connections with carbon reduction.
• Enough! Scotland was an activist collective working on degrowth and decolonisation to address climate change. It closed in July 2024.
• Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland: Organisation with a human rights perspective on environmental issues, offering legal advice and advocating for legal reforms.
• Ethnic Minority Environmental Network: Membership network for ethnic minority organisations, groups and individuals working on climate change.
• Friends of the Earth Scotland: Campaigning organisation with a strong focus on climate justice; campaigns for a fair and just transition for all.
• Fringe of Colour: Edinburgh-based organisation highlighting artists of colour, especially as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
• Inclusion Scotland: Charity working on rights for disabled people in Scotland with a growing focus on the relationship between climate change and ableism; for example in the ‘It’s our planet too: Climate change, disabled people and climate action in Scotland’ report [opens as a PDF].
• Just Transition Commission: Commission set up by the Scottish Government to organise the co-design of climate change policy with ‘communities, businesses, unions and workers, and all society’.
• Just Transition Partnership: Collaboration between Friends of the Earth Scotland and Scotland’s Trade Union Congress, advocating for a just transition in Scotland and globally.
• Landworkers’ Alliance: Union of farmers, foresters and land-based workers campaigning on environmental justice issues related to land and farming; has a Scotland-specific wing.
• Local Energy Scotland: Scottish Government funded organisation working on involving communities across Scotland in the net-zero energy transition.
• Mary Robinson Centre for Climate Justice: Research centre at Glasgow Caledonian University looking at a wide variety of climate justice themes and offering policy advice.
• Neuk Collective: A group that brings together, supports and advocates for neurodivergent artists in Scotland.
• Poverty Alliance: Multi-organisation network working on addressing poverty in Scotland; campaigns on access to public transport and increasingly publishes content connected with climate change.
• Scottish Artists Union: Union representing visual artists in Scotland; has ongoing campaign work on sustainability and climate change and produces publications on this topic.
• Scottish BPOC Writers Network: An advocacy and professional development group for Scottish or Scotland-based writers and literary professionals who identify as BPOC (Black people, People of Colour).
• Scottish Communities Climate Action Network: Network working to support community-led action in Scotland to address the climate and nature emergency and work for a just, thriving and resilient Scotland.
• Scottish Refugee Council: Independent charity dedicated to supporting people in need of refugee protection; has a major arts and culture strand.
• Scotland’s Trade Union Congress: Organisation co-ordinating trade unions and trade union councils across Scotland; ran several co-ordinated campaigns on climate and buses and climate and home heating/insulation.
• We are Here Scotland: Community interest company working to promote BPOC artists and creatives in Scotland.
• Youthlink Scotland: Scotland’s national agency for youth work; has a strand on learning for sustainability.

This guide was created as part of our research on climate justice through our culture/SHIFT programme, which supports collaborations between arts and sustainability practitioners to address the climate emergency.

We updated the guide most recently in December 2024. A prior update in 2022 was part of Local Journeys for Change (LJC), the new IETM programme for IETM members aimed to empower them to bring positive change to their local professional context, local communities or policy-making field.

For this edition of the programme, focused on the theme of Inclusivity, Equality and Fairness, the LJC selection committee selected 24 projects led by IETM members from 22 countries worldwide. They will benefit from training, mentorship, peer-review exchange and financial support to implement their projects in their respective local communities.