Over 60,000 people took to the streets of Brussels for the latest climate march on Sunday 11 October, according to official figures.
A windfall tax on fossil fuel companies’ profits and action to promote a just climate transition and prevent inequalities from widening were demanded.
According to Brussels Studies, the message is: “climate change, whose effects are becoming increasingly tangible, does not affect everyone equally.”
In a new article published by Brussels Studies, Nicola da Schio and Deborah Lambert (VUB), Aurore Fransolet (ULiège) and Tom Bauler (ULB) look at how Brussels’ environmental policy “understands, interprets and addresses different forms of environmental inequality and injustice.”
Brussels Studies says, “Their method involved analysing the Brussels-Capital Region’s multi-year plans and strategies and selecting those primarily concerned with environmental issues and covering the entire regional territory.
“These documents constitute an official body of policy statements which have been negotiated and institutionalised through a drafting process involving numerous stakeholders, with successive stages of revision, technical refinement and political adjustment.”
Brussels Studies is a journal for academic research on Brussels.
It tackles urban Brussels-related issues and publishes researches, from all disciplines, on the realities of Brussels, which represent a significant challenge for the city and its region.
On the latest article, Brussels Studies adds, “The resulting corpus comprises 14 policy documents adopted between 2016 and 2024. The authors analyse both the terminology used in these documents and their explicit objectives.”
It says, “A detailed examination of these documents reveals a lack of an overarching vision of socio-environmental inequalities, environmental deprivation and environmental privilege.
“According to the authors, this hampers a comprehensive approach to these issues. Although socio-environmental inequalities feature in various guises, they are not a central focus of environmental policy, and the existing empirical evidence relating to them receives little attention.
“Furthermore, the vague and superficial use of terms relating to inequality and justice tends to dilute their meaning and weaken their transformative potential.Although the plans prioritise protecting socio-economically disadvantaged groups through affordability measures and targeted support, they rarely impose differentiated obligations on more privileged groups.”
Further info:
https://journals.openedition.org/brussels/?lang=en
- Photo credit: Brussels Studies
