Does the climate crisis have the potential to unite humanity in response?

Absolutely - there is this potential! There is a long history of global social change which has come about when humans have united and worked together. Social movements historically have been able to create big structural change, the kind of big change we will need to face climate change. These movements in the past include things like the Suffragettes who worked to give women the vote and the Civil Rights Movement which worked to abolish segregation. Humans are cooperative beings, we work together – and we’ve seen this time and time again in history.

We are already seeing unity in responding to climate change in many ways. School Strike 4 Climate and Fridays For Future movements are examples of how local unity of young people is part of a global movement. The Paris Agreement is also an example of how lots of different countries can come together for a shared goal. The IPCC too is a whole bunch of scientists working together to learn more about and respond to climate change. We have the capacity as humankind to work together (just look at the changes we were able to make during COVID in a really short amount of time!).

There is also the potential that climate change will exacerbate conflict and cause greater competition over resources as they become scarcer. So, whilst climate change does have the potential to unite humanity, it also has the potential to cause conflict and further divide people in power from people who don’t. That’s why it is important that we are working to find ways to collaborate now as we look to the future.

You can be a part of this! Collaborating and working together to respond to climate change in a united way can include you. This can be small scale collaboration as a school, or community groups, as well as national and international collaboration. Finding practices to work well together to share learning, to care for one another, and to respond to the threats of climate change is really important.