Climate Justice and Reparations

 The climate crisis isn't just an environmental problem - it is a racial and gender justice crisis.Built on slavery, forced labour, land theft, and the plunder of African resources, the carbon-intensive world we inhabit today was shaped by systems that treated African lives and lands as expendable - all justified through racial ideologies that dehumanized African peoples and treated their lands as expendable. This crisis  stems from centuries of resource extraction, land dispossession, and racial capitalism that began with colonization and lives on today through fossil fuel dependency, debt traps, and greenwashing. 

 Africa did not cause this crisis.   

Yet across the continent, people are losing homes, harvests, histories, and lives. While corporations and Global North governments profit from polluting industries and carbon offsets, communities from Dakar to Dar es Salaam are left to bear the costs.

Over thirty years of UN climate negotiations have failed to address this reality. There has been no meaningful engagement with historical responsibility, no tangible redress for climate loss and damage 

If a system is broken, it needs to be repaired. 

If we do not act, the world’s biggest polluters will continue to emit, profit, and delay real action, at the cost of African lives and futures.     

 At AfaLab, we view Climate Reparations as a key means to achieve this. Climate reparations are not only about redress. They are about transformation. 

Transformative climate reparations mean: 

• Dismantling neo-colonial systems that keep Africa trapped in debt and dependency 

• Shifting power to African communities-especially Black women on the frontlines 

• Centering African demands in global climate governance and climate action  

• Moving away from false solutions like offsets, carbon markets, REDD+, and green growth deals 

• Holding colonial and corporate actors accountable for historical and contemporary harm 

Confronting these structural injustices is essential to securing real accountability and redistributing power in the fight for a just climate future..   

At African Futures Lab, we envision a world where African and Afro-descendant communities are no longer made to pay for a crisis they did not cause. Our Climate Justice and Reparations Program aims to dismantle the colonial and neo-colonial systems -  economic, political, and ecological - that deepen climate vulnerability, extract wealth, and erase African agency.

Through decolonial research, strategic advocacy, and movement-building, we fight for climate reparations both as a means for redress and transformation: confronting past and present harms, redistributing resources and power , and advancing structural change.

We demand real accountability from states, corporations, and institutions that have profited from climate breakdown at the cost of African lives, environments and futures. Our work centers African communities—especially Black women - as leaders in shaping just climate responses.

Rooted in Black feminist praxis, Pan-African solidarity, and decolonial approaches, African Futures Lab builds bridges between grassroots struggles and global policy, ensuring those most impacted hold the power to reshape the present and determine their future. 

We expose. We resist. We transform.

Our strategy is built on three pillars:

1. Build Evidence

We produce decolonial, intersectional research that traces climate injustice to its colonial and capitalist roots. We expose false solutions and name those responsible—demanding true reparations, not greenwashed pledges or technocratic fixes.

2. Equip and Advocate

We turn research into action—through policy briefs, legal strategies, and campaigns that strengthen African movements and push global climate finance and governance toward justice, redistribution, and accountability.

3. Mobilize

We bring together frontline communities, activists, scholars, and lawyers from across Africa and the diaspora. Through coalitions, reparations hubs, and youth-led organizing, we build a movement rooted in African realities and led by those most impacted—especially Black women.

We’re working toward a future where climate justice is defined by African voices, grounded in lived experience, and driven by African leadership.

In 2024, we sharpened the climate reparations agenda across research, storytelling, and movement building.

Policy Brief

“Unlocking Climate Reparations”

A framework identifying what true climate reparations must include—and the structural barriers we must dismantle.

Podcast Series

Future Perfect | Futur Antérieur (Season 3)

Featuring voices like Ruth Nyambura, Ineza Umuhoza Grace, Fadhel Kaboub, and others on biodiversity loss, racial capitalism, and the issues with climate finance and market-based approaches.

Mobilization Lab

Advancing the Climate Reparations Narrative in Africa

We trained four youth-led climate organizations from Ghana, Kenya, and Tanzania on reparations framing, legal tools, and advocacy at COPs—building narrative power from the ground up. 

This year, we're launching our Climate Justice and Reparations Programme. Stay tuned and be the first to receive updates on our climate justice and reparations work by signing up to our newsletter:

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Evidence-based Research

Groundbreaking case studies on climate injustice, racial and gender perspectives, and climate coloniality across African countries, as well as timely legal and policy analysis on climate justice and reparations.

Movement Building and Advocacy

Climate reparations will feature prominently at our Reparations Festival (22–24 October) and in our work to mobilize a growing coalition of African voices and South-South movements leading into COP30 in November.