1. Poverty and Climate Change

We have known for decades that climate change excessively affects people living in poverty and those marginalised.^[1] This is clear whenever a climate-fuelled disaster strikes, like a bushfire or a flood. These disasters exacerbate social inequities and create a range of ‘everyday’ legal problems such as tenancy, insurance, employment and discrimination law. People living in poverty or who are marginalised in Australia are disproportionately impacted by climate change due to inadequate income, poor housing and limited access to necessary social supports and health services. Poverty is not their fault; it is due to the way in which our social structures and systems have created the circumstances for poverty and social exclusion to thrive. Poverty is a structural issue that requires systemic solutions, and lawyers can use their legal skills to increase equity and access to justice across our society.

Access to justice is a multidimensional concept.^[2] It focuses on the law’s unequal relationship with different cohorts of society. Access to justice incorporates different dimensions of justice. As you can see in Figure 1, these include distributive justice (fairness in outcomes), procedural justice (fairness in processes), recognition justice (redressing cultural and social marginalisation) and interconnection, which sits around the circles as a meta-justice consideration.