As with any crisis – whether that’s the COVID-19 pandemic, flooding or fires – it is much harder to keep yourself safe and protected if you are already at a disadvantage. This means the impacts of the climate crisis and environmental degradation fall disproportionately on people of colour.
Here in the UK, people of colour and their families are more likely to live in poverty, and recent figures also reveal and overrepresentation of people of colour in homelessness. Racialised communities are disproportionately likely to breathe illegal levels of air pollution, with campaign groups like Clean Air for Southall and Hayes forced to fight corporations for the right to clean air.
Immigration policies are a contributing factor to this inequality.
The ‘No Recourse to Public Funds’ rule, stamped on most visas, denies people access to the Universal Credit and housing support that many people need to get by, including in Britain’s epidemic of low-paid, insec…