Reparative justice and COP29
Climate policy needs to take a reparative stance At the 2024 UN climate change conference (COP 29), developed nations pledged $300bn in climate finance annually to support “an insurance policy for humanity.”1 This falls far short of the trillions required to enable vulnerable nations to adapt to the increasingly severe impacts of climate change.2 COP 29 failed to meaningfully address the systemic inequities that underpin the climate crisis: legacies of imperialism, extractivism, and atmospheric colonisation (the process by which a small number of high income countries have appropriated substantially more than their fair share of the atmospheric commons)3 at the heart of vulnerability to climate change. The most vulnerable nations are being offered paltry sums that are disproportionate to both the loss and damage endured and their contribution to the climate crisis. An example is the 2022 floods in Pakistan, which affected more than 33 million people, destroyed or damaged over two milli
