Part Five / What We Must Do Now

5.20 Climate Reparations

All online sources accessed on

  1. Adom Getachew has called this … ‘worldmaking’ Getachew, A., Worldmaking after Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019).

  2. European empires … were essentially middlemen Parthasarathi, P., Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not: Global Economic Divergence, 1600–1850 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011); Flynn, D. O., and Giráldez, A., ‘Born with a “silver spoon”: the origin of world trade in 1571’, Journal of World History, 6 (2), 1995: 201–21, https://www.jstor.org/stable/20078638; Flynn, D. O., and Giráldez, A., ‘Arbitrage, China, and world trade in the early modern period’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 38 (4), 1995: 429–48, https://doi.org/10.1163/1568520952600308

    made productive with the labour of enslaved and trafficked Africans Inikori, J. E., ‘Slavery and the development of industrial capitalism in England’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 17 (4), 1987: 771–93, https://doi.org/10.2307/204653; Inikori, J. E., ‘Slavery and Atlantic commerce, 1650–1800’, American Economic Review, 82 (2), 1992: 151–7, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2117392; Inikori, J. E., ‘Market structure and the profits of the British African trade in the late eighteenth century’, Journal of Economic History, 41 (4), 1981: 745–76, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022050700044880; Nunn, N., ‘The long-term effects of Africa’s slave trades’, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 123 (1), 2008: 139–76, https://doi.org/10.1162/qjec.2008.123.1.139.

    the beginning of our era of anthropogenic climate change Jonsson, F. A., ‘The Industrial Revolution in the Anthropocene’, Journal of Modern History, 84 (3), 2012: 679–96, https://doi.org/10.1086/666049.

    The Global South … contains the lion’s share of poverty and pollution Zucman, G., ‘Global wealth inequality’, Annual Review of Economics, 11, 2019: 109–38, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-economics-080218-025852; Arrighi, G., Silver, B. J., and Brewer, B. D., ‘Industrial convergence, globalization, and the persistence of the North–South divide’, Studies in Comparative International Development, 38 (1), 2003: 3–31, https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02686319.

    the least advantages and the most disadvantages Darity, W., ‘Stratification economics: the role of intergroup inequality’, Journal of Economics and Finance, 29 (2), 2005: 144–53, https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02761550; Darity, W., and Gordon Nembhard, J., ‘Racial and ethnic economic inequality: the international record’, American Economic Review, 90 (2), 2000: 308–11, http://dx.doi.org/10.1257/aer.90.2.308.

  3. direct payments to African Americans descended from those enslaved Darity, W. A., Jr, and Mullen, A. K., From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century< (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2020).

    an additional amount for African Americans Warren, D., ‘Reparations and basic income’, in Work, Inequality, Basic Income (Cambridge, MA: Boston Review, 2017), 56–60, https://bostonreview.net/forum_response/dorian-t-warren-reparations-and-basic-income/.

    a global universal basic income Lacey, A., ‘Universal basic income as development solution?’, Global Social Policy, 17 (1), 2017: 93–7, https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1468018116684269.

    the $100 billion target ‘does not even come close’ Williams, M., The State of Play of Climate Finance: UNFCCC Funds and the $100 Billion Question, South Centre climate policy brief, December 2019, https://www.southcentre.int/climate-policy-brief-21-december-2019/.

    Private investors and corporations have offered to bridge the gap Baker, J., ‘Mark Carney’s ambitious $130 trillion Glasgow financial alliance for net-zero’, Forbes, 8 November 2021, https://www.forbes.com/sites/jillbaker/2021/11/08/mark-carneys-ambitious-130-trillion-glasgow-financial-alliance-for-net-zero/; Táíwò, O. O., ‘Our planet is heating up. Why are climate politics still frozen?’, New Yorker, 25 October 2021, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/11/01/our-planet-is-heating-up-why-are-climate-politics-still-frozen-colonialism-environment.

    cash would flow to Black and Indigenous households and communities Hamaji, K., et al., Freedom to Thrive: Reimagining Safety and Security in Our Communities, Center for Popular Democracy, Law for Black Lives and Black Youth Project 100, April 2017, https://www.populardemocracy.org/news/publications/freedom-thrive-reimagining-safety-security-our-communities.

    We can do this with a planetary scope Ogle, V., ‘“Funk money”: the end of empires, the expansion of tax havens, and decolonization as an economic and financial event’, Past and Present, 249 (1), 2020: 213–49, https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtaa001; Ogle, V., ‘Tax havens: legal recoding of colonial plunder’, Law and Political Economy Project, 10 November 2020, https://lpeproject.org/blog/tax-havens-legal-recoding-of-colonial-plunder/; Zucman, G., The Hidden Wealth of Nations: The Scourge of Tax Havens (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015).

    private interests have also wormed their way into democratic processes For examples, see: Dal Bó, E., ‘Regulatory capture: a review’, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 22 (2), 2006: 203–25, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxrep/grj013; Noah, A. O., et al., ‘Corporate environmental accountability in Nigeria: an example of regulatory failure and regulatory capture’, Journal of Accounting in Emerging Economies, 11 (1), 2021: 70–93, https://doi.org/10.1108/JAEE-02-2019-0038; Kaufman, A. C., ‘4 More states propose harsh new penalties for protesting fossil fuels’, HuffPost, 20 February 2021, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fossil-fuel-protest_n_602c1ff6c5b6c95056f3f6af

  4. An important alternative is the idea of ‘community control’ Adams, M., and Rameau, M., ‘Black community control over police’, Wisconsin Law Review, 2016 (3): 515–39, https://wlr.law.wisc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/1263/2016/06/4-Adams-Rameau-Final.pdf; Rahman, K. S., and Simonson, J., ‘The institutional design of community control’, California Law Review, 108 (3), 2020: 679–742, https://www.californialawreview.org/print/institutional-design-community-control/; Lim, A., ‘Building community control in a white supremacist country’, The Nation, 20 July 2020, https://www.thenation.com/article/society/police-education-community-control/; Seale, B., ‘Bobby Seale: community control of police was on the Berkeley ballot in 1969’, San Francisco Bay View, 13 August 2015, https://sfbayview.com/2015/08/bobby-seale-community-control-of-police-was-on-the-berkeley-ballot-in-1969/.

    ‘participatory budgeting’ Su, C., ‘From Porto Alegre to New York City: participatory budgeting and democracy’, New Political Science, 39 (1), 2017: 67–75, https://doi.org/10.1080/07393148.2017.1278854; Wampler, B., and Hartz-Karp, J., ‘Participatory budgeting: diffusion and outcomes across the world’, Journal of Public Deliberation, 8 (2), 2012: Article 13, https://doi.org/10.16997/jdd.137; Cohen, T., ‘Can participatory emissions budgeting help local authorities to tackle climate change?’, Environmental Development, 2, 2012: 18–35, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envdev.2012.03.016.

    This approach has travelled widely since Blair, B., ‘Accountability through participatory budgeting in India: only in Kerala?’, in Cheema, R., ed., Governance for Urban Services: Access, Participation, Accountability, and Transparency(Singapore: Springer, 2020), 57–76, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2973-3_3; Nylen, W. R., Participatory Budgeting in a Competitive-Authoritarian Regime: A Case Study (Maputo, Mozambique) (Maputo, Mozambique: Instituto de Estudos Sociais e Económicos Maputo, 2014); Cabannes, Y., and Lipietz, B., ‘Revisiting the democratic promise of participatory budgeting in light of competing political, good governance and technocratic logics’, Environment and Urbanization, 30 (1), 2018: 67–84, https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0956247817746279.

    the ‘Harambee movement’ Opalo, K. O., ‘Formalizing clientelism in Kenya: from Harambee to the Constituency Development Fund’, World Development, 152, 2022: Article 105794, , 152, 2022: Article 105794, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2021.105794.

    ‘energy democracy’ Bozuwa, J., ‘Public ownership for energy democracy’, The Next System Project, 3 September 2018, https://thenextsystem.org/learn/stories/public-ownership-energy-democracy.

    the problems caused by uranium mining Becenti, A., ‘Uranium cleanup report falls on few ears’, Navajo Times, 20 February 2020, https://navajotimes.com/rezpolitics/uranium-cleanup-report-falls-on-few-ears/; Meynen, N., ‘France destroys North Niger. Will the EU or UN act?’, Mondiaal Nieuws, 11 October 2017, https://www.mo.be/en/opinie/france-destroys-north-niger-will-eu-or-un-act; Amnesty International, ‘No clean up, no justice: Shell’s oil pollution in the Niger Delta’, 18 June 2020, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/06/no-clean-up-no-justice-shell-oil-pollution-in-the-niger-delta/.

    Bangladesh’s comprehensive system of disaster preparedness Nishat, A., et al., A Range of Approaches to Address Loss and Damage from Climate Change Impacts in Bangladesh, Centre for Climate Change and Environmental Research, BRAC University, 2013, https://www.weadapt.org/system/files_force/2017/november/5555b2dbe48b47069.pdf?download=1.

  5. Farmers in Hanoi and Kolkata Vansintjan, A., ‘Urban fish ponds: low-tech sewage treatment for towns and cities’, Low-tech Magazine, 28 March 2021, https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2021/03/urban-fish-ponds-low-tech-sewage-treatment-for-towns-and-cities.html.

    community orchard and tree-planting projects Build Soil, ‘Why chestnuts?’, BuildSoil Wiki, https://wiki.buildsoil.net/index.php/Why_Chestnuts%3F; Freitas, T. R., et al., ‘Influence of climate change on chestnut trees: a review’, Plants, 10 (7), 2021: Article 1463, https://doi.org/10.3390/plants10071463; Barron, J., The Giving Trees: Community Orchards as New Urban Commons, PhD dissertation, Carleton University, Ottawa, 2018, https://doi.org/10.22215/etd/2018-13345; Lanza, K., and Stone, B., Jr, ‘Climate adaptation in cities: what trees are suitable for urban heat management?’, Landscape and Urban Planning, 153, 2016, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2015.12.002: 74–82; Taylor Lovell, S., et al., ‘Community orchards for food sovereignty, human health, and climate resilience: indigenous roots and contemporary applications’, Forests, 12 (11), 2021: Article 1533, https://doi.org/10.3390/f12111533; Fenston, J., ‘There’s plenty of food to forage for around D.C. – if you know where to look’, DCist, 24 May 2019, https://dcist.com/story/19/05/24/theres-plenty-of-food-to-forage-for-around-d-c-if-you-know-where-to-look/.