Landslides in Nepal, rising sea level in the Pacific, a drought in the Caribbean: what do these all have in common? Each of these is an example of how the climate crisis is affecting the communities who contribute to it the least.
At UUSC, we remain in solidarity with our frontline partners who are resisting climate destruction through calls for reparations. Let’s briefly explore together what climate reparations are and why they are so important.
First, it’s important to remind ourselves how we got into a climate crisis to begin with. We can trace the start of the crisis all the way back to the start of European expansion. Western empires saw the world as land to be conquered and used for their benefit, and so they extracted our Earth’s land, water, animals, people, metals, oils, and so much more to convert into profit. For generations, extraction has continued unabated and grown so immensely that it has caused drastic changes our planet in recent years.
Now, climate impacts are becoming more dire. We are breaking heat records every month. Our glaciers are disappearing. Our waters are rising. The landscapes, the food, the forests, and the cultures we used to know are vanishing before our eyes.
But these symptoms of climate change are not happening evenly around the world.
Small island nations, Indigenous Peoples, and rural communities are the groups least equipped to navigate climate change. Why? Because the countries that contribute the most to the climate crisis have built their wealth off the extraction from most affected communities.
For example, let’s look at the Bahamas, where our partner Equality Bahamas is calling for reparations. The archipelagic country sits firmly within the Atlantic Hurricane Belt, and over 80% of its landmass is within five feet of sea level. These factors, among others, work together to drastically increase the country’s vulnerability to extreme weather events like Hurricane Dorian in 2019, which killed 74 people and destroyed thousands of homes. In 2024, the Bahamas emitted only 3.07 million tons of CO2 while the United States emitted 4.9 billion tons of CO2 the same year.
This is why we are calling for reparations. It’s time that the people causing climate change to use the profits they have gained from exploitation to support the communities they have been exploiting. This looks like funding climate resiliency projects, supporting climate refugees, and investing in humanitarian solutions to climate destruction.
Reparations are not a ‘nice to have’. Reparations are justice, and justice is how we begin to build a more equitable world.
Learn more about how you can get involved with UUSC’s efforts to advance climate justice.
