Climate reparations

The burning case for climate reparations

Compensation for loss and damage is at the heart of global south demands for climate justice. But true repair demands more, write HARPREET KAUR PAUL and TATIANA GARAVITO.

In 2019, twin cyclones Kenneth and Idai devastated communities in Mozambique within the space of one month. Around 146,000 people were internally displaced, the cyclone and flooding ruined 1 million acres of crops, and caused damage to 100,000 homes. Infrastructure to the tune of $1 billion was destroyed.

Already, 63% of Mozambiquans lived in extreme poverty. The country faces a debt crisis, exacerbated by secret loans made by international banks, including two in London. This poverty and indebtedness continues patterns of colonial exploitation by Portuguese and British interests. In the 20th century, British financiers backed the private companies leading Mozambique’s colonial administration, and forced communities into mines and plantations in neighbouring British colonies. This pattern continues today through debt, trade and investment agreements

Climate justice movements in the global north are increasingly putting reparations - long demanded by the global south - on their agenda.

which allow corporations to extract wealth, expropriate resources and contaminate the environment, and through mining projects like the Mozambique Liquified Natural Gas project which recently received funding from the UK.

The average citizen of Mozambique did almost nothing to cause the climate crisis, and yet they bear the brunt of the loss and damage caused by cyclones Kenneth and Idai. Wealthy, colonial countries and fossil fuel corporations disproportionately contributed to this damage through their reckless climate inaction, but they refuse to pay for it.

THE CASE FOR REPARATIONS

However, in movements around the world there is a growing chorus of demands for climate reparations. Reparations generally seek for those responsible for harms to repair them. Forms of reparation have included apologies, compensation, commemorations, promises or legislative changes to stop the harms, and commitments as well as policies to ensure they are never repeated. Movements and communities have called for reparations for those affected by slavery, torture, genocide, apartheid, colonialism, war, and more.

Climate reparations acknowledges that ways of trading, our relationships to one another and the natural world, and our social relationships all changed irrevocably under colonialism. These histories set us on a trajectory that led to colonisers both being responsible for the devastation wrought by brutal colonial practices like slavery, and disproportionately for the greenhouse gas emissions driving unprecedented floods, storms, droughts, disease spread and more. At its core, climate reparations is about coming together to imagine how to repair these injustices.

Within the UN climate change negotiations, countries on the front lines have been demanding equity for decades. They have fought for a fair approach which would see those countries that contributed most to the climate crisis decarbonise first, and provide finance to others. And more recently, they have fought for measures to address ‘loss and damage’ from those countries in the global north that are most responsible. These promises were hard won but global north governments have thus far failed to deliver on them.

It is estimated that loss and damage (climate impacts we cannot adapt to) in the global south will cost between $290 and 580 billion annually by 2030. Yet there exists no earmarked funding to address it. At COP26 in Glasgow, global south countries came with a clear demand to establish a Glasgow Facility for Loss and Damage Finance. But the proposal was shot down by countries including the EU, the UK, and the US. Instead, they agreed to a weak compromise – a ‘dialogue’ around loss and damage finance that will conclude in 2024. In the leadup to COP27, we must demand that countries pledge new and additional finance for loss and damage to the scale of hundreds of billions of dollars annually.

TRUE REPAIR

The average citizen of Mozambique did almost nothing to cause the climate crisis, yet they are bearing the brunt of the loss and damage.

But loss and damage finance is only a small part of the broader vision for climate justice. Reparations can’t be limited to writing a cheque – we must transform the systems that oppress us in the first place. We must move away from our current extractive economic model which exploits people and the natural world for profit; away from colonial borders and racist immigration policy; away from the theft of land from indigenous people and subsistence farmers. We envision a world in which communities have the agency to define what well-being means for them in line with our planet’s available resources. Our struggles are all connected, and true repair can only be achieved when we build power together to fight injustice.

Various groups around the world are doing the work to make climate reparations a reality. In the UK, the Climate Reparations Bloc we co-led from the Bank of England to Trafalgar Square during COP26 compiled a list of interim stop and start demands: actions the government must take to stop perpetrating harm, while starting to repair the existing harm they’ve caused. Many other movements are fighting for elements of repair that go beyond compensation of people affected, from migrant justice groups resisting racist policies to movements for agroecology and land access. By building a powerful movement practising the values we wish to see, we can collectively define, build and create the future that climate justice demands.

Harpreet Kaur Paul co-leads the Care & Repair work at Tipping Point UK. Tatiana Garavito is an organiser and facilitator on issues around race, migration and climate justice. They're grateful for Sadie DeCoste's support in putting this article together.