February 24, 2025
Exploring Climate Justice and Mobility in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
In Rio de Janeiro, days of heavy rain are now frequent, often leaving the streets flooded, halting public transit services, and preventing much of the population from traveling around the city.
Read the original version of this article in Portuguese.
Meanwhile, in periods of extreme heat, transit-dependent people often have to wait at transit stops under the glaring sun and ride on buses without air conditioning, making time-consuming trips even more exhausting. The climate crisis has aggravated the challenges that already plague the public transport systems in Rio de Janeiro, with particularly heavy impacts on low-income and majority Black populations that depend on such transit to reach jobs, education, and essential services.
Promoting climate justice for Rio’s communities requires a reshaping of urban mobility to make systems more resilient to the growing impacts of climate change, while also guaranteeing the right to essential and accessible mobility for all vulnerable populations. This is especially true as more and more communities bear the brunt of extreme rains, droughts, and temperatures.
It is in this context that ITDP Brazil and partners at Casa Fluminense and the Institute for Climate and Society launched a Mobility and Climate Justice project focused on the region of Rio de Janeiro and highlighting the municipalities of Japeri, Nilópolis and Nova Iguaçu in Baixada Fluminense, an area with large low-income and Black populations. The objective of the project was to train and engage leaders and social organizations in these territories so that, collectively, they could develop integrated ideas and campaigns capable of advocating for improved urban mobility and strengthening the fight against climate inequities in Rio.
For Iuri Moura, ITDP Brazil’s Sustainable Urban Development Manager, this initiative represented an opportunity to include the perspectives of community members directly in the design of public policies: “It is essential to listen to those who live and feel the challenges of everyday life. Unfortunately, public policies are designed by people who often do not live in these territories.”
In the first stage of the project, more than 60 people participated in three virtual ‘classes’ on sustainable urban mobility and climate justice and their intersecting relationship with transit-oriented development, access to opportunities, and walking, cycling, and transit networks. Then, participants met face-to-face in workshops across the municipalities of Japeri, Nilópolis, and Nova Iguaçu for creative and in-depth conversations to develop community-driven proposals aligned with the challenges of each area.
At the end of the process, each municipality’s workshop defined five priorities for improving mobility and tackling local climate inequities. With the resulting reports, the ITDP Brazil and Casa Fluminense teams, together with the leaders of community groups, presented the proposals to public officials from Japeri and Nova Iguaçu to advocate for commitments to better policies. The official launch of the three municipality reports also provided a key opportunity to strengthen the dialogue between the public and municipal administrations, hopefully paving the way for actionable solutions to improve mobility for everyone.
The launch of the project reports took place alongside community groups, Casa Fluminense, and the Institute for Climate and Society. Access the reports in Portuguese.
As the climate crisis intensifies, it is crucial to elevate the voices of the people most impacted by the outcomes. Mobility and climate justice continue to be crucially linked, and a future of sustainable, equitable cities in Brazil relies on active and meaningful community engagement.