Migrante Ontario and Anakbayan Toronto hosted a community discussion on climate justice on November 20 at the Migrants Resource Centre Canada (MRCC) on Dufferin St. with the theme “Land is Life.”

The forum was moderated by Loudez de la Pena, Jojo Quintero, and Czarina Erika of Migrante Ontario, who took turns discussing the impact of land grabbing on farmers, particularly in indigenous communities in the Philippines as a result of land conversion for mining.

Lourdez de la Pena presented a national situation of Filipino farmers who are affected by climate change and the injustices these farmers and farm workers face, including Philippine government policies such as the Rice Tarrification Law (RTL) that brought more farmers to poverty and income loss from palay harvest.

Earlier this year, Anakbayan Toronto led an online discussion on the farmers’ situation in the Philippines, which has not received government support since the outbreak of the pandemic and the passage of the RTL during the Duterte regime.

In the Philippines, the idea of forming a climate justice movement began to germinate in 2007, although its precursors had been discussing the concept of climate justice since 2000, when the first Climate Justice Summit was held in The Hague. In the Philippines, it was primarily led by organizations aware of the heightened vulnerability of countries like the Philippines and the politics of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of Parties (COP), particularly COP 13 in 2007 in Bali. At COP 13, organizations from developing countries, including the Philippines, established the international coalition Climate Justice Now!

Following these movements, a number of similar organizations have emerged. In addition, organizations in the Philippines have begun to advocate for climate justice, specifically for polluting nations to assume responsibility for their ecological and climate debts. Greenpeace, 350.org, the Asian Peoples’ Movement for Debt and Development, and the Philippine Movement for Climate Justice are among the most influential organizations behind these demands.