Intersectional Accountability in Climate Policy

Sor Juana navigated multiple intersecting forms of oppression: as a woman, as a person of mixed racial heritage in colonial society, and as an intellectual challenging institutional authority. Her writings reveal how power operates across interconnected dimensions rather than in isolation. Climate justice requires this same intersectional analysis. Climate breakdown disproportionately harms women, Indigenous peoples, and racialized communities—not coincidentally, but because colonial and patriarchal systems created these vulnerabilities. A woman farmer in sub-Saharan Africa experiences drought differently than a wealthy male investor in the Global North. Climate policy that ignores these intersections reproduces existing inequities while failing to solve the crisis. Sor Juana's example shows that authentic justice demands examining how knowledge, power, and resources flow through multiple channels of oppression simultaneously. Climate accountability must trace these connections, center affected communities' analysis, and dismantle root causes rather than treating symptoms.