Black and brown populations ‘left out of climate conversations’

• Valencia Gunder is a Florida-based activist who advocates for climate resiliency.
• She has been representing her community and other communities like it at COP27.
• Gunder: “Our elderly, undocumented communities, black communities, and brown communities will be most impacted by this”.

Valencia Gunder is a Florida-based activist who assists in getting aid to those affected by hurricanes and flooding.

She has been representing her community and other communities like it at COP27 with the Black Hive, a climate and environmental justice organization that is a part of the Movement for Black Lives.

“Black and brown communities are usually left out of these conversations,” she says.

In order to help those who are most in need globally and help them prepare for climate change, Gunder is advocating for climate resiliency.

She claims that the impacts “are going to keep coming” and that “our elderly, undocumented communities, black communities, and brown communities will be most impacted by this.”

In her term, “climate gentrification,” Valencia refers to the process by which lower-income residents are driven out their neighborhoods as the value of properties and locations that can withstand the effects of climate change rises.

After one hurricane hit the southwest of Florida, she says she met a mother who said she had lost her two sons to floodwaters because they couldn’t swim. “It’s so sad that our people even have to swim, and that nobody was there to share her story,” she says.

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