Decolonising Palestine and Unsettling Environmental Justice by Bana Abu Zuluf, Patrick Bresnihan, and Rory Rowan

55. [E]nvironmental justice in Palestine is not just about Palestine. In his speech at COP28 in December, the Colombian President Gustavo Petro said: ‘What we see in Gaza is the rehearsal of the future.’ He was referring to the ease with which Western leaders supported the genocidal and barbaric acts inflicted on the Palestinian people. A similar fate, he argued, awaits those trying to escape unliveable conditions brought on by the climate crisis. He could have extended this analogy to highlight how Israel’s genocide, its treatment of the indigenous surplus population, sits comfortably alongside Israel’s status as a supposed leader in climate and environmental solutions. The acute depravity of this contradiction should not be lost on anyone who considers themselves concerned about climate change and our collective future on this planet.