Kenya Lamb, Turn2us; Lee Lockhart, Race Equality Foundation
Caring about the climate often feels like a luxury. When you are worried about just paying the bills to keep a roof over your head, climate conversations can feel removed from your everyday realities. In the UK, people from Black, Asian, and minoritised ethnic communities disproportionately represent people living in financial insecurity. At Turn2us and Race Equality Foundation we are well aware that this is the result of systemic oppression rather than individual circumstance. Financial insecurity creates immense stress on just surviving, which ultimately makes climate action feel inaccessible.
The reality of fuel poverty
The sense of exclusion is especially true for people experiencing fuel poverty and fuel debt. Rising energy costs have turned basic needs like heating and electricity into sources of extreme stress.
Yet mainstream environmental narratives typically focus on individual lifestyle changes that often are highly expensive, such as: buying an electric vehicle (EV); retrofitting your home; or buying solar panels.
For people living in financial insecurity, the costs to access these items are prohibitive. Furthermore, systemic factors like renting a flat can mean you do not have any of these options available to you, even if you have the money.
Systemic oppression and policy failures
However, we know for this community that racism, poverty, and climate injustice are interconnected parts of systemic oppression that must be tackled holistically for real and lasting change. Racialised communities experiencing financial insecurity are disproportionately living with:
- Higher pollution
- Lower housing quality
- Fewer green spaces
These conditions actively exacerbate existing inequalities. They are directly shaped by political decisions that have failed to protect these communities, while simultaneously worsening environmental harms in the very communities experiencing economic deprivation.
Historically, policy responses have reproduced these inequalities because they have not included people with lived experience in creating solutions. Many government schemes have historically required people to financially buy in or have expected people’s debt to fit into neat, arbitrary categories, which often does not reflect people’s lived realities.
There can not be effective climate policy that treats inequality as a secondary issue.
Effective climate policy must look at inequality as the very foundation, because decision-makers must recognise that the exact same system that creates inequality also drives environmental harm.
Redefining Climate Policy
Genuine financial security is inseparable from a just climate transition in the UK. Access to social security benefits, emergency funds, and debt relief are not peripheral concerns – they are the core infrastructure that makes participation in a fairer economy possible. When people are not entirely consumed by the daily crisis of survival, they finally have the capacity to engage, organise, and advocate.
Policies that reduce financial insecurity lay the groundwork for a a transition that works for everyone. This must be achieved through:
- A strengthened social security system
- Fairer treatment of those in fuel debt
- Ensuring that UK government green investment schemes, such as the Warm Homes Plan, directly reach the communities that need them most
Policymakers must think about these issues holistically, rather than focussing solely on carbon emissions. Addressing fuel poverty and debt is climate policy. Tackling racism and economic justice is climate policy. Real climate policy confronts the structures that make certain communities more vulnerable to poverty and environmental harm in the first place.
Turning Insights into Action
Through our Everyone’s Environment programme, Turn2us and Race Equality Foundation are committed to turning these insights into action. We are working to ensure that racialised communities experiencing financial insecurity are active participants in shaping climate policy, rather than just its subjects.
Need support? If you or someone you know is struggling with the kind of financial insecurity that makes climate feel like a distant luxury, Turn2us offers free tools and resources to help you access the grants and benefits you may be entitled to.
Together, we can build a movement that tackles financial insecurity, racism, and climate injustice as the interconnected crises they are – because a just transition must work for everyone.
