African Futures Lab support to the African Union ECOSOCC Climate Change Working Group (CCWG)

As the African Union enters its Decade on Reparations, African Futures Lab works with the African Union Economic, Social and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC) Climate Change Working Group to push for climate action rooted in justice, accountability, and historical responsibility.

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In 2025 the AU ECOSOCC Climate Change Working Group produced several outputs, including a policy brief on African priorities ahead of COP30 and seven position papers on mitigation, adaptation, and climate finance.

 Our Lab leads the Climate Finance Workstream, chaired by Dr. Patrick Toussaint (external link). Under this workstream, we contributed three position papers, including as lead author of a paper on Advancing Climate Reparations, Human Rights, and Gender Justice Through Climate Finance. This position paper reveals how climate finance frameworks reduce justice questions to technical procedures, leaving African communities outside the rooms where decisions are made. This analysis forms part of a wider pattern in which administrative tools overshadow structural redistribution, historical responsibility, and the lived experiences of climate-vulnerable populations.

Read the position paper here (external link).

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Rights reserved: AU ECOSOCC

As part of our engagement with AU ECOSOCC, African Futures Lab has helped strengthen the space for African civil society voices. In August 2025 we co-hosted a webinar From Courts to COP for African Climate Reparations: Harnessing Legal Momentum for African Climate Reparations (external link)which explored how recent international court opinions can strengthen African demands for climate reparations within the UN climate negotiations. 

We will continue our engagement with AU ECOSOCC through 2026 and 2027, across African climate summits and regional policy spaces, towards the 32nd UN Climate Conference (COP 32) in Addis Ababa. Throughout the African Union's Decade on Reparations, African Futures Lab is working to ensure that climate policy centers African realities and demands and delivers real reparations rooted in justice, not charity.