# data[].attributes.headline
Welcome to Your Carbon Literacy Journey!

# data[].attributes.subject
Welcome to Your Carbon Literacy Journey!

# data[].attributes.body
This is your launchpad for your Carbon Literacy for Business course. Here you'll find everything you need to get started—key info, course structure, and how to get the most from your training.

This Padlet is your one-stop hub for everything you need to:

Deepen your understanding of the climate crisis with a range of resources and a handy glossary

Revisit the course content with access to all the slides presented during your training

Share your feedback to help us improve and grow

Connect with us on social media and stay in the loop

Scroll to the right to explore more content and materials.

If you have any questions or need further support, don’t hesitate to get in touch at hello@lighthouse-sustainability.co.uk.

# data[].attributes.body
Lighthouse is based on firm foundations. We have been guiding businesses from start-ups to household names for 25 years and along the way we have gained a crew of knowledgeable, resourceful, and insightful people, who we can rely on to give the best advice and support.

Emma, the founder of Lighthouse, loves to train people. She’s on a mission to train an army of individuals who can give us the best chance of minimising our future impact on the planet. Since 2021, Emma has led the team to deliver more than 75 courses and train more than 800 learners.

For more information, please visit https://lighthouse-sustainability.co.uk/

# data[].attributes.body
Our very own Emma Burlow's NEW podcast, Straight Talking Sustainability! Available on:

Apple

Spotify

Other great listens:

BBC Radio 4 - 39 Ways to Save the Planet

Outrage and Optimism

Jon Richardson and the Futurenauts

TED Climate

My Climate Diet

BBC World Service- The Climate Question

For What It’s Earth

# data[].attributes.headline
Blank Participant Details and Evidence Form

# data[].attributes.subject
Blank Participant Details and Evidence Form

# data[].attributes.body
Please click the document image above to download the Participant Details and Evidence Form. This needs to be completed and returned to us when you have completed the training sessions.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
MRIO Release

We have made the headline results from our Multi-regional Input-Output model (MRIO) freely available, along with best practice guidance on its use in supply chain emissions assessments and on its integration with Life Cycle Analysis. We have done this to enable robust, transparent, practical and compatible company supply chain emissions reporting.

Briefing Paper on GWP*

In our paper, "GWP*: Applications & Misapplications," we focus on methane emissions' distinct role in global warming. Exploring CO 2 and methane differences, we caution against GWP* misuse. In the context of agriculture, we stress the need to consider land use and water footprints for improved sustainable land management and food systems.

Our research and consultancy pushes for systemic change.

We prioritise the areas where we think we can have the most leverage. These include business transition, carbon reduction, carbon modelling, technology, research & education, communication, sustainable investment and food & land use.

A dedication to truth is at the heart of all our work. Without a culture of greater honesty, it is almost impossible to imagine progress on the world's greatest challenges.

Click through our site to learn more about our work, to view some of our past and present clients, and to meet our team.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Small World Consulting | Sustainability Consultancy | Mike Berners-Lee | Bailrigg, Lancaster University, UK

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Small World Consulting exists as a response to the climate and ecological emergency. Leading scope 3 carbon accounting specialists and sustainability strategy consultancy based in the North West of England.

# data[].attributes.headline
£50 credit when you switch to Octopus Energy (£100 for business accounts)

# data[].attributes.subject
£50 credit when you switch to Octopus Energy (£100 for business accounts)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Octopus customers pay less: Cheaper than price-cap prices, rewards for using less when the grid is stressed, and smart tariff savings for your home, car or battery

# data[].attributes.body
1. Watch Sir David Attenborough's documentary Climate Change - The Facts (1 hour)

If you are not able to access iPlayer or are short of time, there are shorter clips on YouTube.

2. Complete the personal Carbon Footprint Calculator (15 minutes).

# data[].attributes.headline
Let's reach Zero- Openreach (Video links)

# data[].attributes.subject
Let's reach Zero- Openreach (Video links)

# data[].attributes.body
Have a look at what Openreach is doing to tackle the climate crisis.

Video 1: Let's reach Zero

Video 2: Reducing our Carbon Footprint

Video 3: Circular Economy

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Our mission - to build the best Full Fibre future for the UK - will create a more sustainable network. Find out more about our sustainability efforts.

# data[].attributes.body
Lighthouse Reading List

How Bad are Bananas?  - Mike Berners-Lee

There is No Planet B - Mike Berners-Lee

Drawdown - The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming - Paul Hawkin

The Future We Choose - The Stubborn Optimist’s Guide to the Climate Crisis – Christiana Figueres / Tom Rivett-Carnac

Net Positive - Paul Polman

You Can't Make Money From a Dead Planet: The Sustainable Method for Driving Profit - Mark Shayler

# data[].attributes.body
1. Explore Carbon Map (5 mins)

2. Watch How can business survive climate change? | The Economist (20mins) and COP26 Mia Motley PM of Barbados and/or Vinisha Umashankar – Earthshot winner (both 5-6mins)

3. Read Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity' - BBC News and 10 Big Findings from the 2023 IPCC Report on Climate Change (WRI)

# data[].attributes.headline
Accessible Participant Details & Evidence Form

# data[].attributes.subject
Accessible Participant Details & Evidence Form

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The fight for a habitable planet is the fight for our lives. But while we look at ways to make our lives more sustainable, most of us are also funding environmental catastrophe.

During the 7 years following the Paris Agreement, the world's top 60 private-sector banks pumped $5.5 trillion into fossil fuels.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Find Ethical & Sustainable Banks In Your Area - Bank.Green

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Bank.Green is sounding the alarm on the climate-destroying activities of banks while recommending sustainable alternatives and empowering consumer action.

# data[].attributes.headline
Session slides will appear after you have completed the training.

# data[].attributes.subject
Session slides will appear after you have completed the training.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Free Small Business Carbon Footprint Calculator - Small99

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Answer a few simple, non-technical questions to get your Carbon footprint Assessment and provide instant, actionable steps on how to improve.

# data[].attributes.body
Contact emma@lighthouse-sustainability.co.uk for a personal referral to Dan at My Mother Tree.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
70% of all carbon emissions come from 100 companies.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Calculate your environmental footprint and learn how you can reduce your impact with WWF's Footprint Calculator.

# data[].attributes.body
Delve deeper into the topics covered in your course.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
What is a carbon footprint?

Our carbon footprint measures the amount of greenhouse gas emissions, carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e), generated by our actions. As the climate crisis worsens, it's become even more important to consider our choices, their impact on the planet and how they can reduce our carbon footprint.

How to reduce your carbon footprint?

The travel sector accounts for around 8% of global carbon emissions**, so choosing to travel by more eco-friendly means can significantly impact your carbon footprint. Thankfully there are plenty of ways you can reduce your travel carbon footprint.

If you're planning on travelling within Europe, you can significantly reduce the carbon emissions of your journey by taking a ferry rather than flying. According to the DEFRA (Department of Energy, Food and Rural Affairs), a single foot-passenger travelling on a ferry will produce only 19g of CO2e per kilometre compared to 154g for the average short-haul flight passenger, an 88% reduction in their travel carbon footprint.

Road trips over relatively short distances are often more sustainable than flying, especially with electric vehicles becoming more widely available. For example, a family of 4 travelling from London to Paris could reduce their travel carbon footprint by up to 85% if they drove to Dover in an average electric car and caught the ferry instead of flying directly. Even in a standard petrol car, the same family of 4 could reduce their travel carbon footprint by up to 59% by taking a road trip to Paris.

What is slow travel?

For years the trend in travel has been to jet around as many countries as possible, chasing experiences and ticking destinations off our list of places to visit. However, slow travel has emerged in response to tourism's impact on local communities and the environment.

Slow travel encourages tourists to take their time on holiday, choosing slower modes of transport, such as ferries and trains, staying longer and immersing themselves in the local culture.

Choosing to reduce the number of flights we take each year doesn't mean we can't keep travelling. On the contrary, combining a car or train journey with a ferry is a fantastic way to see more of the world, create a travel experience that has a more emotional impact and act on the climate crisis.

*Emission figures are based on the Department of Energy, Food and Rural Affairs' 2021 Greenhouse gas reporting: conversion factors report . Carbon emission savings have been calculated using the DEFRA emission figures for an average passenger on a short-haul flight and an average petrol fuelled car. Distances travelled are calculated using Google Maps. Carbon emissions for journeys have been calculated using the numbers below:

Ferry foot passenger: 0.0187 kg CO2e / passenger km.

Ferry car passengers: 0.1295 kg CO2e / km for the driver plus 0.0187 kg CO2e / km for each additional passenger, divided by the total number of passengers.

Electric Car: 0.0525 kg CO2e / km for an average sized electric car

Petrol Car: 0.1879 kg CO2e / km for an average sized petrol car.

Bus: 0.0268 kg CO2e / passenger km for an average local bus

Train: 0.0045 kg CO2e / passenger km for a National Rail passenger

Plane: 0.1535 kg CO2e / passenger km for an average short-haul passenger flying within Europe.

**Nature - Climate Change (2018)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Calculate your travel carbon footprint - Direct Ferries

# data[].attributes.headline
Net Zero Strategy Game - Financial Times

# data[].attributes.subject
Net Zero Strategy Game - Financial Times

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Climate Game - Can you reach net zero?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
See if you can save the planet from the worst effects of climate change

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Ecosia - the search engine that plants trees

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Ecosia uses the ad revenue from your searches to plant trees where they are needed the most. By searching with Ecosia, you're not only reforesting our planet, but you're also empowering the communities around our planting projects to build a better future for themselves. Give it a try!

# data[].attributes.body
Shine: Share learning and inspire others
Guide: Experienced strategic support for decision makers
Equip: Robust research and skills, and strong networks
Foundations: Bespoke training and coaching for all

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Your request has been taken into account.

An email has just been sent to you with a link to download the resource :)

Dedicated to all companies wishing to measure, manage, and reduce their CO2 emissions at an affordable price. Join the movement!

The world's #1 solution to start your net zero journey

Scope 1,2 and 3

First step to your climate engagement is to measure your company's CO2 emissions each year, to better reduce them then.

Activity-Based

Seek out Activity-Based factors that employ your real activity data as this will provide you with robust measurements.

Spend-Based

Greenly has developed a technology for automated analysis of the carbon impact of activities via Spend-Based method.

Benchmarking

Get a thorough analysis of your emissions on our dashboard and compare yourself with other players in your industry.

Supplier involvement

Push your suppliers to engage in a reduction process, to improve your own carbon footprint.

Employee involvement

Our experts define a customised action plan to help you take effective steps towards reducing emissions.

Connected software

Greenly synchronises with most of your business tools, whatever your job or activity is.

Location-based data

Add details from your electricity contracts for the most accurate energy usage data, with Greenly and Electricity Maps.

Stay updated

To make sure you're relying on the latest data, we regularly update databases to reflect the most recent emission factors.

User management

Add new users in order to better manage your Carbon Footprint.

Expert by industry

The largest knowledge base available thanks to hundreds of GHG Assessments and the centralisation of public databases.

Optimal Security

We hold SOC certification and comply with ISO 27001 standards, which means that your data and value chain is secure.

+1,500

customers make a concrete commitment to the climate

+10

countries currently served by our expert teams

+28M

t.CO2eq are managed and monitored by our experts

+5M

emissions factors aggregated from customers & industry databases

Secure carbon data that meets the highest standards

We take everything into account to give you precise outcomes. And we do it fast

Dedicated climate experts just for you

Greenly's secret recipe: state-of-the-art technology coupled with a team of climate experts to support you at every stage of your company's transition to a sustainable model.

Discover our Services

Take advantage of our expertise.

Add up profits and time savers by choosing Greenly

Compare our solution to those available on the market.
Find out more

Compare Greenly with...

Use Greenly for your company: save and working days.

Methodology note - > Digital solution : Greenly has developed a algorithm guaranteeing a 100% categorisation rate. Other similar companies only reach a 70 to 80% rate, hence more time is needed to complete the GHG inventory.

Trusted by the most ambitious climate leaders

Leading industry analysts say Greenly is the best software provider for automating carbon accounting and financial disclorures.
Read the full report

The climate compass - Navigating the Path to Sustainability

Stay up-to-date on sustainability topics with our monthly updates and never miss a beat.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Greenly: The go-to carbon accounting platform for your business

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
With Greenly's Carbon Management platform: measure, reduce, report and offset your carbon emissions for a cleaner future!

# data[].attributes.body
Join the network of businesses declaring a climate and ecological emergency & taking purposeful action.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
business declares a climate & ecological emergency by

# data[].attributes.headline
Food facts and infographics from Fork Ranger

# data[].attributes.subject
Food facts and infographics from Fork Ranger

# data[].attributes.body
Tell Frank and the team that we sent you!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Explore how to eat for the climate. Answer fun quizzes and unlock easy recipes to put knowledge into action.

# data[].attributes.body
This course has been accredited by The Carbon Literacy Project.

Find out more:
https://carbonliteracy.com/

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Navigating the 1.5 Degrees Breach
Image credit: Photo by Pixabay. In 2023, the world witnessed an onslaught of extreme weather events, ranging from severe droughts and scorching heatwaves to devastating wildfires...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Relevant climate change learning for everyone

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.authors[].name
Manish Karkera & Guy Griffiths (Institute for Environmental Analytics)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Visualising how the climate has changed for every country across the globe

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Carbon Footprint Calculator has been designed to help UK based SMEs measure their corporate emission footprint following GHG Protocol Guidance, including direct emissions from fuel and processes (Scope 1 emissions) and those emissions from purchased electricity (or Scope 2 emissions) for the assets they operate.

The following tool is not a complete evaluation of an organisational footprint. It only includes selected emission sources, common to the majority of SMEs using an operational control approach.

Trouble viewing the tool? Open the tool in a separate page.

Carbon Footprint Calculator

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Easily calculate your emissions from fuel and processes and purchased electricity with this online tool for small and medium-sized businesses.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Carbon dioxide (CO ₂) is an important heat-trapping gas, also known as a greenhouse gas, that comes from the extraction and burning of fossil fuels (such as coal, oil, and natural gas), from wildfires, and natural processes like volcanic eruptions. The first graph shows atmospheric CO ₂ levels measured by NOAA at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii, since 1958. The second graph shows CO ₂ levels during Earth's last three glacial cycles, as captured by air bubbles trapped in ice sheets and glaciers.

Since the onset of industrial times in the 18th century, human activities have raised atmospheric CO ₂ by 50% - meaning the amount of CO ₂ is now 150% of its value in 1750. This human-induced rise is greater than the natural increase observed at the end of the last ice age 20,000 years ago.

The animated map shows how the historical changes in global carbon dioxide over time. Note the colors change as the amount of CO ₂ rises from 365 parts per million (ppm) in 2002 to over 420 ppm currently. It's important to understand that "parts per million" refers to the number of carbon dioxide molecules per million molecules of dry air. These measurements are from the mid-troposphere, the layer of Earth's atmosphere that is 8 to 12 kilometers (about 5 to 7 miles) above the ground. This data provides insights into the significant rise in atmospheric CO2 concentrations, highlighting the impact of human activities on Earth's climate.

CO₂ Through the Seasons

A closer look at the carbon dioxide measurements at Mauna Loa shows a series of wiggles in the data. Although total CO ₂ is increasing each year, there is also a short-term cycle visible within the larger trend.

This annual rise and fall of CO ₂ levels is caused by seasonal cycles in photosynthesis on a massive scale. In Northern Hemisphere spring, plants come to life and draw in CO ₂ to fuel their growth. This begins the process of lowering the amount of CO ₂ in the atmosphere. In northern autumn, plant growth stops or slows down, and the whole process reverses itself. Much of the plant matter decomposes, releasing CO ₂ back to the atmosphere.

A similar but less intense pattern repeats in the Southern Hemisphere in opposite seasons. Spring growth starts in September and winter decomposition begins in March, so CO ₂ records in the Southern Hemisphere show the opposite pattern of that seen in Mauna Loa. However, because there is a lot more land and vegetation in the Northern Hemisphere than the southern, the global seasonal cycle more closely aligns with the northern pattern.

See the cycle in action in the visualization Watching Earth Breathe: The Seasonal Vegetation Cycle and Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide.

This boom-and-bust cycle of plant growth gives the graph of CO ₂ a sawtooth pattern of ups and downs from year to year. At a larger scale, the upward climb of the trend line over the decades is caused by CO ₂ emissions, primarily from burning fossil fuels. Thus, the data illustrate both natural factors and human additions of CO ₂.

Learn more:

NASA's Climate Kids: Why is Carbon Important?

Missions That Observe CO₂
Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO-2) Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO-3)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Carbon Dioxide Concentration | NASA Global Climate Change

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Vital Signs of the Planet: Global Climate Change and Global Warming. Current news and data streams about global warming and climate change from NASA.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Historical responsibility for climate change is radically shifted when colonial rule is taken into account, Carbon Brief analysis reveals.

The first-of-its-kind analysis offers a thought-provoking fresh perspective on questions of climate justice and historical responsibility, which lie at the heart of the global climate debate.

In total, humans have collectively pumped 2,558bn tonnes of CO2 (GtCO2) into the atmosphere since 1850, enough to warm the planet by 1.15C above pre-industrial temperatures.

This means that, by the end of 2023, more than 92% of the carbon budget for 1.5C will have been used up - leaving less than five years remaining if current annual emissions continue.

However, responsibility for using up this global budget is highly unequal. The wealthiest countries - and within each nation the wealthiest individuals - have taken a disproportionate share.

Previous Carbon Brief analysis already showed the US (20%) to be the world's largest contributor to warming. Yet it implicitly allocated none of the responsibility for emissions under colonial rule to the colonial rulers, even though they held ultimate decision-making authority at the time.

The new analysis tests the implications of reversing this assumption. It finds the US (21%) and China (12%) still top - but the share of former colonial powers growing significantly.

The French share of historical emissions rises by half, the UK nearly doubles, the Netherlands nearly triples and Portugal more than triples. Together, the EU+UK's responsibility for warming rises by nearly a third, to 19%.

India is among the former colonies seeing its share of historical responsibility fall (by 15%, to below the UK), with Indonesia down by 24% and Africa's already small contribution also dropping 24%.

How cumulative national CO2 emissions from fossil fuels, land use, land use change and forestry change over time during 1850-2023, million tonnes, when accounting for emissions under colonial rule. The remaining carbon budget for a 50/50 chance of staying below 1.5C is shown by the doughnut chart in the bottom right. Source: Carbon Brief analysis of figures from Jones et al (2023), Lamboll et al (2023), the Global Carbon Project, CDIAC, Our World in Data, the International Energy Agency and Carbon Monitor. Animation by Carbon Brief.

Notably, former colonial powers such as the UK and the Netherlands are much more prominent in the history of cumulative global CO2 emissions shown in the animation above.

While former colonies such as India and Indonesia are less prominent as a result, they still have significant emissions in the post-colonial era, pushing them into the top 10 as of 2023.

As before, the new analysis is based on CO2 emissions from the burning of fossil fuels and cement production, along with land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF).

It covers the period from 1850 - often taken as the baseline for current warming - through to 2023, drawing primarily on a recent compilation of emissions estimates.

The assignment of colonial responsibility for emissions is largely based on research into the emergence of independent nation states since the early 19th century.

Other key findings of the analysis include:

As a group, the EU+UK collectively ranks second for emissions within its own borders (375GtCO2, 14.7% of the global total). This climbs by nearly a third after adding colonial emissions, to 478GtCO2 and 18.7% of the global total - just behind the US.

The UK ranks fourth in the world when accounting for colonial emissions - jumping ahead of its former colony India. Including emissions under British rule in 46 former colonies, the UK is responsible for nearly twice as much global warming as previously thought (130GtCO2 and 5.1% of the total, instead of 76GtCO2 and 3.0%).

The largest contributions to the UK's colonial emissions are from India (13GtCO2, cutting its own total by 15%), Myanmar (7GtCO2, -49%) and Nigeria (5GtCO2, -33%).

The Netherlands accounts for nearly three times as much warming when accounting for colonial emissions (35GtCO2 and 1.4% of the total, rather than 13GtCO2 and 0.5%). This is largely due to LULUCF emissions in Indonesia, under Dutch rule, of 22GtCO2.

Africa - the vast majority of which was under colonial rule - sees its share of historical emissions fall by nearly a quarter, from 6.9% to 5.2%. Despite a 21-times larger population, this 5.2% share is only fractionally higher than the UK's 5.1%.

When weighted by current populations, the Netherlands (2,014tCO2 per person) and the UK (1,922tCO2) become the world's top emitters on a cumulative per-capita basis. They are followed by Russia (1,655tCO2), the US (1,560tCO2) and Canada (1,524tCO2).

On this per-capita measure, China (217tCO2 per person), the continent of Africa (92tCO2) and India (52tCO2) are far behind developed nations' contributions to warming.

Many former colonial powers are also net CO2 importers today. While data on CO2 imports and exports is limited, available figures further raise their shares of historical emissions.

These findings reinforce the significant historical responsibility of developed countries for current warming, particularly the former colonial powers in Europe.

While they account for less than 11% of the world's population today, together, the US, EU and UK are responsible for 39% of cumulative historical emissions and current CO2-related warming.

Many of these countries now have small and declining emissions. Yet their relative wealth today - and their historical contributions to current warming - are recognised within the international climate regime as being tied to a responsibility to lead, not only in terms of cutting their own emissions, but also in supporting the climate response in less developed countries.

The article below sets out why cumulative CO2 matters, how colonial rule changes responsibility for warming and where colonial emissions come from. It then looks at the impact of weighting emissions on a per-capita basis and accounting for emissions embedded in traded goods.

The article also includes a sortable, searchable table showing these key metrics for each country, as well as further details on the methodology used to produce this analysis.

Why cumulative CO2 matters

There is "unequivocal" evidence that humans have warmed the planet, causing "widespread and rapid" changes to Earth's oceans, ice and land surface, according to the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) sixth assessment report.

The summary for policymakers states that current warming has been caused by "more than a century of net GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions from energy use, land-use and land use change, lifestyle and patterns of consumption, and production".

Global warming is virtually certain to reach a new record high in 2023. Yet global greenhouse gas emissions have also climbed to record levels.

Meanwhile, climate change to date is already causing widespread impacts that disproportionately affect low-income countries, from deadly heatwaves and droughts to "catastrophic" ice loss.

Human-caused CO2 emissions are the largest contributor to warming and there is a direct, linear relationship between the amount of CO2 released and the warming of the Earth's surface.

Moreover, the timing of a tonne of CO2 being emitted has only a limited impact on the amount of warming it will ultimately cause. Once emitted, the resulting increase in atmospheric CO2 levels is essentially permanent on human timescales. This is despite the fact that individual CO2 molecules have a limited lifetime in the atmosphere, as they circulate around the carbon cycle.

As a result, CO2 emissions from previous centuries continue to contribute to the heating of the planet - and current warming is determined by the cumulative total of CO2 emissions over time.

This is the scientific basis for the carbon budget, namely, the total amount of CO2 that can be emitted to stay below any given limit on global temperatures.

This analysis uses the latest estimates of the remaining carbon budget for a 50/50 chance of limiting warming to less than 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures.

The carbon budget is now smaller than the figure used in Carbon Brief's 2021 analysis, due to updated understanding of the warming impact of non-CO2 greenhouse gases.

Adding up all of the human-caused CO2 emissions tracked in this analysis, during 1850-2023, amounts to 2,558GtCO2. (See: Methodology: Why this analysis starts in 1850.)

This means the remaining carbon budget for 1.5C will be just 208GtCO2 by the end of 2023. Less than 8% of the budget will be left - and the entire budget would be used up within less than five years, if global CO2 emissions were to continue at current levels.

In the first decade covered by Carbon Brief's analysis, land-related emissions including deforestation account for more than 90% of the CO2 being released each year.

This pattern is reversed in the present day, with fossil fuels and cement production accounting for an estimated 91% of global CO2 emissions in 2023, as shown in the figure below.

Annual global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and cement overtook land-related emissions for the first time in 1947 - coincidentally, the year that India and Pakistan gained independence.

Overall, fossil fuels and cement account for more than two-thirds of cumulative CO2, some 71% of the total emissions released during 1850-2023. Land use and forestry account for the other 29%.

Annual global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and cement (dark blue) as well as from land use, land-use change and forestry (red), 1850-2023, billions of tonnes. Source: Carbon Brief analysis of figures from Jones et al (2023), Lamboll et al (2023), the Global Carbon Project, CDIAC, Our World in Data, the International Energy Agency and Carbon Monitor. Chart by Carbon Brief.

Carbon Brief's estimates of cumulative emissions since 1850 - and the remaining carbon budget as of the present day - are fully aligned with the latest updates since the IPCC report in 2021.

The accelerating depletion of the carbon budget for 1.5C is illustrated by markers in the figure above, showing the years when 25%, 50% and 75% of the budget had been used up.

This shows that it took 107 years to use up the first quarter of the carbon budget, then just 33 years to use up the next quarter and only a further 22 years for the third quarter.

At the current rate, the final quarter of the 1.5C budget will have been used up in 16 years.

How colonial rule changes responsibility for warming

Historical responsibility is ethically complex, but it is clear that colonial powers had a significant influence on landscapes, natural resource use and development patterns taking place under their rule. It would be hard to justify ignoring this completely.

Indeed, it is well known that colonial powers extracted natural resources from colonised lands to support their economic, military and political power.

Yet the link to historical emissions has never been quantified, until now.

This analysis assigns full responsibility for past emissions to those with ultimate decision-making authority at the time, namely, the colonial rulers. This reverses the implicit assumption of previous analyses, where none of the responsibility was given to colonial powers.

Arguably, the true share of responsibility for current warming lies somewhere between these two extremes, where emissions are fully assigned to either the colonial powers or their former colonies.

In line with this approach, the analysis assigns responsibility for emissions within the former Soviet republics to Russia, because decision-making authority was heavily centralised in Moscow.

The figure below shows the top 20 countries in the world in terms of their cumulative historical CO2 emissions. The blue columns show emissions taking place within each country's current borders, while the red chunks show emissions that took place under its rule, in controlled territories. The light blue chunks show emissions reallocated from former colonies to the former colonial power.

Notably, the major post-colonial European powers, including the UK (+70%), France (+51%) and the Netherlands (+181%), all see significant increases in their share of historical emissions.

While they do not appear in the top 20, there are similar effects for Belgium (+33%), Portugal (+234%) and Spain (+12%). Collectively, the EU+UK take on much larger responsibility (+28%).

On the flip side, India (-15%) and Indonesia (-24%) are particularly notable for their reduced share of cumulative emissions, under this new approach to historical responsibility for warming.

Russia also sees a significant increase in its historical responsibility for current warming, which rises by two-fifths to 9.3% of the global total, under the approach taken in this analysis.

Nevertheless, some argue that the nature of the power dynamics within the former Soviet Union was different to those between European colonialists and the peoples they colonised overseas.

While also not appearing in the top 20, there are big shifts, too, for Austria (+72%) and Hungary (+70%), as a result of the former Austro-Hungarian empire. This, too, was of a different nature to the overseas colonisations of other European powers.

Accounting for colonial rule alters the relative ranking of a number of countries.

The UK is the most prominent example, climbing from eighth-largest contributor to climate change to fourth. This means it leapfrogs its former colony, India, in terms of past responsibility.

Similarly, while the Netherlands does not quite overtake Indonesia, their relative rankings are significantly different after accounting for colonial responsibility for past emissions.

These shifts are illustrated in the figure below, which shows the top 20 countries in the world ranked according to their share of cumulative emissions. On the left, only emissions within present-day borders are considered, while on the right, emissions under colonial rule are added.

(Note that the EU+UK is shown as a bloc, in addition to the top 20 countries.)

The other obvious shifts in the ranking chart, above, are for Ukraine and Kazakhstan, both former Soviet republics that were under centralised rule from Moscow for much of the 20th century.

Unlike other emissions reassignments under Carbon Brief's new analysis, these and other former Soviet republics have large amounts of fossil fuel-based CO2 emissions shifted off their books.

Referring back to the chart of fossil- versus land-based emissions over time, above, illustrates the major reason why this is the case. Annual CO2 emissions were dominated by contributions from LULUCF until the middle of the 20th century, when fossil fuel use started to explode.

Many former European colonies in Asia, Africa, Oceania and the Americas had gained independence well before the point when fossil fuel use accelerated. In contrast, former Soviet republics were part of the Soviet Union administered from Moscow until its collapse in 1991.

Where colonial emissions come from

The history of European imperialism is "inseparable from the history of global environmental change", say Prof William Beinert and Lotte Hughes in their 2007 book Environment and Empire.

For the UK, one driver was what they describe as the "gradual domestic deforestation" of the country, which "hastened dependence on coal for energy" and drove demand for timber imports.

In turn, the shift to machine power based on fossil fuels "enormously expanded the possibilities of metropolitan production and consumption [and] facilitated a new surge in imperial expansion, carried by steamships, railways, and motor vehicles". They write:

"Metropolitan countries sought raw materials of all kinds, from timber and furs to rubber and oil. They established plantations that transformed island ecologies. Settlers introduced new methods of farming; some displaced Indigenous peoples and their methods of managing the land."

This hunger for natural resources drove deforestation and environmental change in colonised lands, from the Americas and the Caribbean to Asia, Africa and Oceania.

In Barbados, for example, the establishment of plantations "necessitated destroying the forests...with a combination of ring-barking and burning", according to the book.

Similarly, in Madeira, "one of the founding myths recalled by...colonists was a fire that burned for seven years - a powerful metaphor for deforestation".

Yet, as colonial forests were denuded of their ability to produce high-quality timber, colonisation also led to the beginnings of "conservationist practices and ideas", Beinart and Hughes write:

"[W]hile natural resources have been intensely exploited, a related process, the rise of conservationist practices and ideas, was also deeply rooted in imperial history. Large tracts of land have been reserved for forests, national parks or wildlife."

The British empire was particularly far-reaching, controlling around a quarter of the Earth's land surface at its peak by the end of the 19th century - and more than a quarter of its population.

In Carbon Brief's new analysis, emissions under British rule in 46 former colonies are reassigned to the UK, almost doubling its share of the global historical total.

This is illustrated in the figure below, with notable contributions coming from India and Myanmar through to countries such as Australia, Canada, Tanzania, Zambia and COP28 hosts the United Arab Emirates.

The largest contribution to the UK's colonial emissions is from India, as shown in the figure above, with the second largest being from Myanmar.

In their book, Beinart and Hughes describe the intimate links between the colonisation of these countries and the exploitation of their natural resources, with the two interacting and reinforcing each other, as resources were used to further cement British control. They write:

"Indigenous hardwoods were the prime riches...essential to the British army, navy and railways, they became cogs in the conquest of India. The new demands inevitably led to deforestation...Railways, [which were at the heart of domestic timber demand in India,] were critical for moving troops and thereby controlling territory. Rolling back the forests to make way for cultivation was also seen by the East India Company as a means of extending control."

Beinart and Hughes also refer to the particular use of teak from Myanmar to make warships: "Burma or 'Admiralty' teak was known to be the strongest. Used for navy frigates, it was said to have saved Britain during the Napoleonic wars and aided her maritime expansion."

Later, the depletion of Indigenous hardwood forests led to colonial conservation efforts, though the motives for doing this - and the means by which it was achieved - were decidedly mixed.

The book quotes Hugh Cleghorn, conservator of forests for the Madras presidency, writing in 1861 of the "careless rapacity of the native population...who cut and cleared [forests]...without being in any way under the control or regulation of authority". It continues:

"When a[n Indian] Forest Department was established in 1864, Britain had few experts of its own. [German forester Dietrich] Brandis had been brought in two years previously from Burma, where he was credited from with saving the Burmese teak forests from timber traders, for the benefit of British shipbuilders...The conservators were under pressure to manage the forests effectively, meet the needs of the admiralty and others for large quantities of timber, simultaneously turn a profit, and contain local peoples' claims on the forests...The British laid claim to territory they considered unoccupied and unclaimed, and regarded princely property as theirs by right of conquest."

Similar dynamics were at play in Indonesia, which had long been under Dutch rule. The late historian of Indonesia Prof Peter Boomgaard wrote in a 1999 book chapter that deforestation on the Indonesian island of Java "began to be perceived as a problem around 1850".

Boomgaard adds that this led to the establishment of a colonial forest service and the creation of protected forests. This pattern, which has included the confiscation of lands and the exclusion of Indigenous peoples in the name of conservation, has been repeated in many other former colonies.

The figure below show how cumulative emissions within the borders of the Netherlands (left), some 12.6GtCO2 between 1850-2023, are nearly tripled when taking into account emissions that took place under Dutch colonial rule - particularly in Indonesia (right).

Writing at his blog, Indonesian soil scientist Prof Budiman Minasny describes the impact of Dutch colonial rule on the island of Sumatra:

"When we talk about deforestation, Indonesia always came up as the main culprit. Less talked about is [the] Dutch root of deforestation in Indonesia...The Dutch discovered the tobacco industry in Deli in the 1860s and created an industrial-scale plantation system. The local sultans collaborated and gave concessions of 1,000-2,000 hectares of land to each company in a 75-year lease. The Dutch colonial planters assumed that tobacco could only grow well in the soil that had just been cleared from the virgin jungle. Thus, the industry drove large-scale virgin forests clearing to produce tobacco leaves exported to Europe and America."

The ongoing legacy of colonial rule is debated, but many of its vestiges remain, whether in the structure of state administrative functions or in the presence of commercial interests owned by multinationals based in former colonial powers.

As a 2015 paper explains, these colonial legacies continue to this day:

"Though colonialism was dismantled in the first half of the twentieth century, its policies on forest nationalisation remain unchanged across many independent states in the tropics including Nigeria."

Concluding their chapter, Beinart and Hughes write of the British imperial legacy on India:

"British imperial control of India had a major impact on its extraordinarily varied range of trees and forest products. It also restricted access to forests by poor people...That later exclusion of humans from wildlife parks was also partly rooted in the forest laws of the colonial people, which treated local people as wasteful and destructive...But pressures on the forest did not end with independence. The current rate of deforestation is said to be well over one million ha every year."

How population size affects responsibility for warming

Overall cumulative emissions are what matters for the atmosphere, given they relate directly to the level of warming being experienced today.

Still, from the perspectives of fairness, equity and climate justice - since national borders are arbitrary political constructs - it is also appropriate to consider responsibility at the individual level.

This involves weighting national cumulative emissions totals by their respective national populations, in order to calculate per-capita cumulative emissions.

As in Carbon Brief's previous article, this analysis uses two alternative approaches to account for relative population sizes. Colonial responsibility alters both sets of figures dramatically.

The first approach takes a country's cumulative emissions to date and divides it by the population in 2023. The results are in the figure below, showing the top 10 emitters and five selected others.

Per-capita emissions within each country's borders are once again shown in blue, with per-capita emissions occurring in former territories under colonial rule shown in red. Per-capita emissions reallocated to a colonial power are shown in light blue.

Notably, former colonial powers the Netherlands (2,014tCO2 per person) and the UK (1,922tCO2) are the world's top emitters on this per-capita cumulative basis. They are followed by Russia (1,655tCO2), the US (1,560tCO2) and Canada (1,524tCO2).

The figure shows that colonial responsibility for emissions pushes the US and Canada down the rankings, from first and second, into fourth and third, respectively.

Other former imperial powers, including Belgium (1,487tCO2) and Austria (987tCO2) are also in the top 10, as are former colonies Australia (1,088tCO2, down 10% due to colonial emissions being reallocated) and Trinidad and Tobago (948tCO2, down 16%).

The figure also shows five other selected countries: Portugal (945tCO2) and France (857tCO2), with significant colonial footprints; as well as major emitters China (217tCO2) and India (52tCO2), which are far behind other nations on a per-capita basis.

Not shown on the chart is the average for the continent of Africa (92tCO2), which, like India's, is many times lower than the global average of 318tCO2.

The second approach to weighting historical emissions by population takes a country's per-capita emissions in each year and adds them up over time. This gives equal weight to the per-capita emissions of the populations of the past and the present day.

The results are shown in the figure below, again listing the top 10 emitters and five selected others.

Notably, the Netherlands is the top emitter on both per-capita metrics. Similarly, the UK, US and Canada all remain in the top five on this second per-capita basis.

Other notable entries in the figure above include New Zealand and Australia, which ranked first and third, respectively, in Carbon Brief's previous analysis.

Once their significant early per-capita emissions, due to deforestation under colonial rule, are taken into account, both nations drop down the rankings on this second per-capita basis.

The chart includes five other selected countries, including Malaysia and Indonesia, which illustrate similar dynamics to New Zealand and Australia. Finally, the chart once again includes China and India, showing their cumulative per-capita emissions are far behind those of most others.

How emissions imports and exports affect responsibility for warming

The search for overseas natural resources, to fuel the rise of industrialisation and globalisation, was one driver of colonial conquest.

In the post-colonial era, international trade continues to drive imports and exports of CO2, embedded in carbon-intensive goods and services.

Whereas standard emissions accounting is based on where CO2 is emitted, consumption-based emissions accounting gives full responsibility to those that use the products and services rendered with fossil energy. This tends to reduce the total for major exporters, such as China.

However, there are challenges to calculating emissions on this basis, as it requires detailed trade tables. The consumption emissions data used for this analysis only begins in 1990 and only includes CO2 from fossil fuels and cement, meaning it excludes pre-1990 trade and LULUCF.

With these limitations in mind, the figure below shows how national responsibility for historical emissions is shifted further, when accounting for CO2 traded in goods and services.

Cumulative emissions in the period 1850-2023, including those that took place overseas under colonial rule, are shown in dark blue. The red chunks show additional CO2 associated with imported goods and services since 1990, while light blue shows CO2 embedded in exports.

Notably, former colonial powers, the UK and France have also been net CO2 importers since 1990, as the chart shows - although the impact on their overall totals is small.

When including these CO2 imports and exports, the UK's share of historical emissions rises from 5.1% to 5.3%, while France goes from 2.2% to 2.3%.

On the flip side, China's share of historical emissions and responsibility for current warming falls from 12.1% to 11.1%, when accounting for the trade in embedded CO2 since 1990. India's share of the global total also falls, albeit fractionally, from 2.9% to 2.8%.

Exported goods accounted for as much as a quarter of China's annual emissions in the mid-2000s. More recently, however, their share is down to around 10% of China's yearly CO2 output.

Including carbon-intensive trade prior to 1990 would shift the picture shown in the figure above.

The UK, as the " workshop of the world" in the 19th century, exported large volumes of energy- and carbon-intensive goods - often manufactured using resources gathered from its empire.

Other industrialising nations, such as the US and Germany, were also major exporters of manufactured goods, playing, as one 2017 paper puts it, a similar role to that of China today.

Table: Historical emissions and colonial responsibility

This article highlights the many alternative lenses through which historical responsibility can be viewed, with each showing a slightly different viewpoint on the world.

In order to foster discussion and debate over the figures - and in the spirit of transparency - the table below shows a range of metrics for all countries in 2023.

The table, which is sortable and searchable, lists countries according to their population, historical emissions within their own borders, emissions after accounting for colonial responsibility and the impact of CO2 embedded in trade since 1990 combined with colonial emissions.

Finally, the table shows the two alternative per-capita metrics. The first shows cumulative colonial emissions for each country, weighted by its population in 2023. The second shows per-capita colonial emissions in each year, cumulatively added up through to the present day.

(Note that as for the figures above, this table excludes countries with a population of less than 1 million people.)
This data is free to use under the terms of Carbon Brief's A complete dataset covering all countries and all years, including the split between fossil fuel and LULUCF emissions, is available via , under the same licence conditions. . The licence applies to non-commercial use and requires a credit to "Carbon Brief" and a link to this article.
Methodology: Historical emissions and colonial responsibility

This analysis is based on historical CO2 emissions from fossil fuel use, cement production, land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF), during the period 1850-2023.

The approach taken for this article mirrors the methodology for Carbon Brief's 2021 analysis of historical responsibility for climate change.

That earlier article explains how it is possible to make reliable estimates of historical emissions, even though they were not monitored or recorded at the time.

In broad terms, historical fossil fuel CO2 estimates rely on records of fossil fuel production and sale, with each unit of coal, oil and gas that is burned, releasing a predictable amount of CO2.

Estimates for LULUCF are based on records of changing patterns of land use, combined with models that translate these changes into related CO2 impacts.

The historical CO2 emissions figures used in this article are taken from research published in the journal Scientific Data in March 2023, covering the years 1850-2021.

This was authored by Dr Matthew Jones, research fellow at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia, with colleagues in Norway, Austria, Germany and the US.

In turn, this draws on data for fossil fuels and cement from the Global Carbon Budget (GCB), which adapts data from the Carbon Dioxide Information and Analysis Center (CDIAC) prior to 1990.

The Jones et al paper uses estimated historical LULUCF emissions taken from three separate " bookkeeping models " that contribute to the GCB.

Emissions from fossil fuels and cement are estimated for the years 2022 and 2023 based on the percentage changes reported by Carbon Monitor, using country-specific figures where available.

Emissions from LULUCF for 2022 and 2023 are assumed to remain at 2021 levels.

Historical emissions estimates are combined with data on foreign rule, taken from a 2010 paper published in the American Sociological Review by Prof Andreas Wimmer and Yuval Feinstein, both then at the department of sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Their paper tracks the rise of the independent nation state from 1816-2001. For each country and year, it lists whether a nation was independent and, if not, the foreign ruler.

Gaps in the Wimmer and Feinstein database were filled where necessary, using publicly available information. For example, the database combines some smaller colonial powers under a catch-all category of "other empires" and this was disaggregated where possible.

Notably, the database does not reflect changes in rule due to military occupation and Carbon Brief's analysis did not attempt to update this.

Similarly, a number of countries are not included in the Wimmer and Feinstein database.
This data and code is free to use under the terms of Carbon Brief's A complete dataset covering all countries and all years, including the split between fossil fuel and LULUCF emissions, is available via the GitHub link, under the same licence conditions. . The licence applies to non-commercial use and requires a credit to "Carbon Brief" and a link to this article.
For 10 missing countries with cumulative emissions of 0.5GtCO2 (0.02% of the global total) or more, Carbon Brief added publicly available information on periods of colonial rule, for use in the overall analysis. Missing countries with cumulative emissions below 0.5GtCO2 were not added into the database, except for two countries of the former Yugoslavia that were not originally included.

The code used for this analysis - and the resulting emissions figures - is available on GitHub.

Methodology: Why this analysis starts in 1850

The analysis for this article covers the period 1850-2023. There are a number of reasons for choosing this time period.

First and foremost, the data prior to 1850 is incomplete, posing a practical barrier to extending the analysis further back in time. While figures are available from 1750 onwards for national CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and LULUCF, the fossil fuel figures in particular are relatively sparse.

More importantly, the Wimmer and Feinstein database on foreign rule only begins in 1816. Extending this data backwards would require manual checking for each country, as well as making judgements on the often-contested and cloudy question of when colonial rule began.

As for CO2 emitted in the 1850s, pre-1850 emissions were predominantly from LULUCF.

This is because, as noted in Carbon Brief's 2021 analysis, CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and cement were negligible in the period before 1850. Fossil CO2 emissions during 1750-1850 amounted to less than 4GtCO2, just over 0.1% of the cumulative total emitted subsequently.

The picture is a little different for LULUCF. Figures from OSCAR, one of the three bookkeeping models used for post-1850 LULUCF estimates, extend back as far as 1701.

These figures show that some 93GtCO2 was released globally, during 1750-1850, equivalent to nearly 4% of the cumulative total from all sources during 1850-2023.

Nearly a quarter of this total originates in China and would not be reassigned on the basis of colonial rule. Another fifth is from the US and an eighth from Russia, but only just over 10% of the US figure occurred under British rule before 1776.

More notably, in the context of assigning colonial responsibility for historical emissions, are 4GtCO2 from LULUCF in India and the same again in Indonesia. Both countries were already under significant colonial influence, even if not outright direct rule.

Nevertheless, there is another reason to begin this analysis only in 1850. Specifically, 1850 is usually taken as the reference year for historical simulations and marks the starting point for temperature changes, which are generally measured against an 1850-1900 baseline.

The IPCC's sixth assessment report calculates the "remaining carbon budget" for staying below 1.5C - or any other given temperature - starting from 1850.

This is because there is no good temperature baseline before then, says Prof Pierre Friedlingstein, chair in mathematical modelling of climate systems at the University of Exeter.

This article was written by Simon Evans and edited by Leo Hickman. Data analysis was carried out by Verner Viisainen. Visuals by Tom Pearson and Tom Prater.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Revealed: How colonial rule radically shifts historical responsibility for climate change - Carbon Brief

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Historical responsibility for climate change is radically shifted when colonial rule is taken into account, Carbon Brief analysis reveals.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
When hurricanes, floods or droughts strike, all too often those hit hardest are poor and marginalised communities who bear little responsibility for climate change.

This is the central argument of "climate justice" - a reshaping of climate action from a technical effort to cut emissions into an approach that also addresses human rights and social inequality.

As industrialised nations and corporations have amassed wealth by burning fossil fuels, many also argue that a "just" outcome would involve them redistributing more of this wealth towards those having to deal with the consequences.

Pioneered by activists from the global south in response to the threats facing their homelands, today the term "climate justice" is widely used by researchers, NGOs and politicians seeking to address related injustices throughout society.

In this Q&A, Carbon Brief explores the history of climate justice, examining why the impacts of global warming are not borne equally and how the concept has influenced international politics, activism and courtrooms in recent years.

How has the concept of climate justice been developed?

Climate justice has emerged from the idea that historical responsibility for climate change lies with wealthy and powerful people - and yet it disproportionately impacts the poorest and most vulnerable.

This article is part of a week-long special series on climate justice.

It has primarily been used to frame the contrast between industrialised nations that have been burning large volumes of fossil fuels freely for centuries and the poorer regions that are most susceptible to rising temperature.

It has also been used to describe the intergenerational injustice of older generations benefiting from fossil fuels and leaving young people to deal with the consequences.

Some refer to the " triple injustice " of climate change, with those affected the most, but contributing the least, sometimes also facing an additional burden from responses to global warming that worsen their situations further.

According to Asad Rehman, executive director of anti-poverty NGO War on Want, the concept of climate justice has largely been developed by activists from the global south who have argued that:

"Fixing the climate is only possible if we also fix all of the other inequalities that exist because not only does climate reinforce all those things, but it also amplifies them - and it's an expression of those things."

Mohamed Adow from thinktank Power Shift Africa tells Carbon Brief that climate justice is "an extension of the struggles of [global] southern, Indigenous and local communities for land, resources, sovereignty and anticolonialism".

Today, the message can be heard from the waves of climate protesters who take to streets around the world chanting: "What do we want? Climate justice. When do we want it? Now!" The timeline below lays out some of the key moments in the ascent of climate justice as a political idea and a rallying cry for activists.

A UN Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) paper describes the "global climate justice movement" as a loose merger between three entities: the environmental justice movement, the global justice or anti-globalisation movement, and a group of radical international NGOs involved in United Nations (UN) climate talks.

The concept of "environmental justice" is often traced to the early 1980s in the US, when black protesters opposed the dumping of toxic chemicals in their communities, although its roots stretch back further to the civil rights activism of the 1960s.

This movement was led by people of colour outside of the predominantly white environmental establishment in the US who wanted to draw attention to the fact that their communities were being hit hardest by pollution.

"Whether by conscious design or institutional neglect, communities of colour in urban ghettos, in rural 'poverty pockets', or on economically impoverished Native-American reservations face some of the worst environmental devastation in the nation."

These concerns were formalised at the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit in 1991, where attendees set out 17 principles of environmental justice.

They reflected Indigenous perceptions of the environment, with a first principle to affirm "the sacredness of Mother Earth, ecological unity and the interdependence of all species, and the right to be free from ecological destruction". However, there was no mention of climate change.

In the years that followed, organisations with an anticapitalist, global justice perspective on issues such as debt, trade and globalisation began taking a greater interest in climate change. Their work in this area helped reframe the issue as something affecting people rather than simply an "environmental" problem.

The environmental justice movement came from communities that historically bore the brunt of hosting waste sites. When a predominantly black county in NC (Warren County) protested a toxic waste landfill, it galvanized the nation to talk about environmental racism. pic.twitter.com/HYBQwN0dHS
- NC DNCR (@ncculture) December 18, 2020

Meanwhile, some civil society groups and global south nations involved in UN international climate negotiations started calling for richer countries to shoulder their historical responsibility for climate change and repay their "climate debts" to the global south.

In 1999, the NGO CorpWatch released a report titled, " Greenhouse Gangsters vs. Climate Justice ", an early use of the term, which took aim at the fossil fuel industry and stated that climate change "may well be the largest environmental justice issue of all time".

The world's first-ever Climate Justice Summit came soon after in 2000, organised by CorpWatch and held at the same time as the COP6 negotiations in The Hague. The summit resulted in an action statement saying:

"We affirm that climate change is a rights issue. It affects our livelihoods, our health, our children and our natural resources. We will build alliances across states and borders to oppose climate change inducing patterns and advocate for and practice sustainable development."

Two years later, an international coalition of social and environmental organisations released the 27 Bali Principles of Climate Justice to "redefine climate change from a human rights and environmental justice perspective". These global principles used the US-centred environmental justice principles as a blueprint.

All of this came to a head at the COP15 climate summit in Copenhagen in 2009, which saw a mass mobilisation of climate justice activists and calls from global south leaders for recognition of wealthy nations' responsibility for climate change. (See: How has climate justice shaped international negotiations?)

The chart below shows how mentions of "climate justice" in the global media had an initial surge in the year of COP15 and have more than doubled in volume since 2018.

Frequency of articles mentioning the term "climate justice" in English-language global media, 2000-2021 (figures for 2021 only cover January-September). Some irrelevant mentions from earlier years were removed from the dataset (e.g. "In such a climate, justice cannot be done.") Source: Factiva. Chart by Carbon Brief using Highcharts.

As these ideas have become more widespread, "elite" NGOs, such as the Mary Robinson Foundation, have tried to bridge the gap between the political establishment and the more radical demands of grassroots activists.

Robinson herself, a former UN high commissioner for human rights, has described climate change as "probably the greatest human rights challenge of the 21st century".

He tells Carbon Brief that early work in this area was largely theoretical and philosophical, focusing on "climate ethics" and who was responsible for global warming.

However, over the past 15 years the field has "grown exponentially", with geographers, economists, anthropologists and sociologists all getting involved, he adds.

This growth can be seen in the chart below, which shows academic publications mentioning "climate justice" captured on the Web of Science database since 2000.

Frequency of research papers, book chapters and other academic documents mentioning the term "climate justice" in English-language publications, 2000-2021 (figures for 2021 only cover January-September). Source: Web of Science. Chart by Carbon Brief using Highcharts.

In contrast to the many global south-led climate justice movements, the "theoretical foundations of climate justice are quite northern-led," according to Dr Shilpi Srivastava from the Institute of Development Studies. Of the 968 papers referencing "climate justice" Carbon Brief found on Web of Science, just 148 featured contributions from global south institutions.

In fact, the text in question originally came from a paper Weiss had presented at a conference on "developing policies for responding to future climatic change" in 1987. In its introduction, she stated:

"Global climate change induced partly by human activities raises serious issues of justice between the present generation and future generations, and between communities within future generations. In using the planet's resources for our own benefit, we may pass many of the costs to future generations in the form of climate change and the need to adapt to such change."

However, as Weiss tells Carbon Brief, the ideas underpinning this work go back even further, with her own studies of the international legal and political implications of climate modification dating back to 1973.

Concerns about intergenerational injustices, demonstrated more recently by the Fridays for Future protests, are one of the "four pillars of climate justice" identified by Srivastava and her colleagues in a recent paper. The others are:

Distributional - how the costs and benefits of climate change and action are shared.

Procedural - ensuring the processes for making decisions about the impacts of and responses to climate change are fair, accountable and transparent.

Recognition - Recognising differences between groups in how they experience climate change and their right to express these differences.

Srivastava tells Carbon Brief that while the distributive aspects of climate justice have gained some traction - for example, the idea that vulnerable nations should be helped to adapt to climate change - other aspects, such as inclusivity, have been less prominent:

"Whose voices are dominating the agenda and 'solutions'?...There is a risk that climate justice might be (mis)appropriated as a trope unless we remain vigilant and take concrete steps towards including the voices of those who are most vulnerable to climate change impacts."

There are also concerns in the activist community that, as climate-justice discourse has proliferated, the concept has been stripped of its core demands for economic overhaul and redistribution of wealth, captured in the slogan "system change, not climate change".

However, Dr Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) in Dhaka, Bangladesh, says that, in his view, the world is entering a "third age" of climate change response in which it is viewed predominantly as a moral problem:

"It's a matter of manifest injustice and that's easily recognisable by everyone all over the world, including school kids who come out every Friday...They don't really need to understand greenhouse gases, they don't need to understand UNFCCC [UN Framework Convention on Climate Change] and IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] and all that stuff, they can understand the fundamental inhumanity of causing damage to poor people by their lifestyle"."

What does the climate justice movement want?

There has been considerable debate about what constitutes a "just" approach to climate action, reflecting the diversity of the people and groups involved.

Over the years, dozens of declarations and manifestos have laid out the priorities of various climate justice groups, one recent example being the " people's demands" of the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice.

Many common themes have emerged from these documents, including a focus on Indigenous rights, women's rights and the rights of future generations.

Below, Carbon Brief unpacks some of the central concepts that have solidified over the years and what they mean for international climate politics.

'Fair shares' of emissions

Fossil fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions have been skewed over the course of history towards a small number of relatively wealthy nations.

The geographical inequality of emissions can be seen in the chart below, with the "high-income" countries identified by the World Bank shown in blue.

In total, these countries are responsible for 44% of cumulative CO2 emissions from fossil fuels, land use and forestry since pre-industrial times, as the blue area on the chart below shows. This is particularly notable given they are home to just 14% of the global population today.

Annual emissions from high-income nations (blue), as defined by the World Bank, and other nations (red) since pre-industrial times. All EU28 nations are grouped together, even though Romania and Bulgaria are not classed as "high-income". The "other rich countries" group also excludes some small island nations with minimal impact on global emissions, despite their inclusion in the World Bank's "high income" category. Source: Carbon Brief analysis. Chart by Carbon Brief using Highcharts.

A key demand of the climate justice movement is for rich countries to recognise their historical responsibility for emissions and respond with dramatic cuts to limit warming to 1.5C, in line with the most ambitious target of the Paris Agreement.

This demand is also made in light of the greater capacity such nations have to spend money on decarbonising.

The " carbon budget" - the remaining emissions that can be released before any given temperature is breached - has emerged as a central concept in climate science and policy over the past decade.

There is only around 460bn tonnes of carbon dioxide (GtCO2) - or 11.5 years of 2020-level emissions - of the global carbon budget remaining beyond 1 January 2021 before being committed to 1.5C of warming.

Poorer nations, such as India, have argued that they should be allowed to use more of the remaining " atmospheric space" or "carbon space" - essentially the remaining budget - to help them develop, as rich nations have used more than their fair share. (Others argue that cheap low-carbon technologies mean such nations could " leapfrog " fossil-fuelled development in favour of technologies such as renewables power.)

These debates have been complicated by the rapid growth of some nations, particularly China, where emissions have risen significantly in the three decades since the UNFCCC divided the world into industrialised or "economies in transition" Annex I and "mostly developing" non-Annex I nations.

Despite their significant contribution today, these countries have argued that they do not share the same responsibility as nations that have maintained high emissions for centuries.

For India, in particular, its high emissions today mask the fact that its per-capita emissions remain low and millions still live below the poverty line.

This position was outlined at the COP15 summit in 2009 by Chinese diplomat Su Wei, who criticised the commitments made by the US, EU and Japan, while pointing to developing countries' lack of historical responsibility.

The opposing view was voiced by US diplomat Todd Stern, who told reporters: "Emissions are emissions. You've just got to do the math. It's not a matter of politics or morality."

While the UNFCCC has always recognised nations' "common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities" to address climate change, some have argued that this principle has been " watered down" under pressure from richer nations. (See: How has climate justice shaped international negotiations?).

The Paris Agreement sidesteps the contentious issue of what makes a "fair share", but nevertheless all parties under it must come forward with climate pledges and justify why they are fair and reflect their "'highest possible ambition".

As it stands, these nationally determined contributions (NDCs) - even if met in full - are set collectively to breach the Paris temperature targets and result in warming of an estimated 2.4C.

"If every country had to extrapolate from their criteria what it would mean if they were extended to the rest of the world, the unfairness of their fair share would become very clear."

The analysis concluded that many fairness justifications used in NDCs, such as allocating emissions cuts where it is cheapest to do so, relied on arguments that were not supported by principles of international law. Sticking to these legal principles would tend to require deeper cuts from developed countries, the paper found.

Many groups calling for climate justice have argued that rich nations should be the ones bridging the gap to meet Paris Agreement targets.

Responding to a perceived lack of equity analysis within the UN system, in 2015 a large group of NGOs set up the Civil Society Review, which has produced a series of reports highlighting the gaps between "fair shares" and actual commitments.

In its 2018 report, the review stated that the "rhetorical insistence that 'we all have to do more'" would not be enough to achieve the Paris targets:

"This misleading - or, at best, incomplete - framing of the situation is part of the problem...It is overwhelmingly wealthy industrialised countries which are failing to make their fair share of the global effort. And that fact carries profound political implications."

The current domestic targets for the US and the UK are 50-52% and 68%, respectively.

In both cases, national "fair shares" far exceed their emissions today, meaning that to achieve equitable outcomes the countries would be required to contribute significant financial support to ensure cuts in other countries.(See: Climate debt and climate finance.)

By contrast, as the chart below from 2018 shows, the CERP approach suggests that the global south, including large emerging economies, have been taking on their fair shares. (The black horizontal lines show the amount of emissions reductions per capita in 2030, as implied by the nation's NDC at the time, compared to the coloured lines which show "fair" reductions under different equity settings.)

The Civil Society Review notes that despite China and India meeting its definition of fair shares, they would still need to undertake far greater emissions cuts in the future, supported by international finance, or the 1.5C goal will be "quite impossible".

However, it notes that it is "hard to see how this could possibly happen while the richer countries continue to expect a free ride".

Other attempts to calculate "fair shares" place greater responsibility on global south nations.

CAT has developed its own methodology based on a review of dozens of papers examining "fair shares", which gives equal weight to equity considerations beyond historical responsibility and capacity, such as the relative cost-effectiveness of climate action.

Höhne, who leads CAT, tells Carbon Brief that while it is "super clear" that industrialised countries need to support other nations financially:

"...the closer we come to the 1.5C limit, the less relevant is the question of what is a fair share because we simply have to reduce emissions drastically. Everybody has to do it."

Some climate activists, including Greta Thunberg, have suggested that a fairer way of assessing emissions would be to look at consumption rather than territorial emissions.

They argue that, otherwise, wealthy nations get a free pass for using emissions-intensive products that are made in countries such as China.

While the international reporting system is based on territorial emissions, even splitting up emissions by country could be viewed as an imperfect way of deciding fairness, given the large financial and emissions-related inequality that exists in many societies.

Dr Saleemul Huq, who is based at ICCCAD, says this "rich people vs. poor people" framing is important when discussing climate justice.

"Those of us who produce more than our fair share of emissions - and I include myself in that group - we owe something to the victims of our pollution."

This is recognised in the Bali Principles of Climate Justice, developed by NGOs in 2002, which note that "unsustainable consumption exists primarily in the north, but also among elites within the south". Indian journalist Praful Bidwai has described the focus on national per capita emissions as "a shield that enables India's elite to hide behind the poor".

The UNEP chart below shows the vast inequality in emissions output between the world's rich and poor. Its analysis suggests that a top 1% earner - someone earning over $109,000 (£80,000) per year - will need to cut their personal emissions by 97% to reach a "fair share" level by 2030, in line with the 1.5C target, indicated by the purple line.

Analysis conducted for Oxfam found that, in 2015, around half the emissions of the richest 10% - with an income of over $38,000 (£28,000) - were associated with people in the EU and the US. Around a fifth of these emissions were produced by people in China and India.

The charity has called for policies to curb the emissions of the wealthy, including higher taxes and bans on carbon-intensive luxury items and activities, such as frequent flights.

On an individual level, research suggests that the perceived fairness of a climate policy plays a big role in deciding whether people support it or not. However, once again, people can have very different perceptions of what "fair" outcomes would be.

Is fairness really that basic a value? Dependent on one's value dispositions, people define it as 'equality', 'proportionality' (not cheating or taking more than you worked for), or both. Here's some recent data: pic.twitter.com/Q7Xg1MPKVw
- Kris De Meyer (@kris8dm) September 24, 2021

Climate debt and climate finance

Significant costs are likely to fall on nations that lack funds to spend on, say, erecting wind turbines or building flood defences. Much of the climate-justice narrative centres around the need for wealthy countries to pay for these things.

An early rallying point for the climate-justice movement was the idea that industrialised nations - as well as high-polluting corporations - owed the global south a " climate debt ".

This was an extension of the concept of "ecological debt", an idea that emerged in the early 1990s and was described by Ecuadorian NGO Accion Ecologica as:

"The debt accumulated by the northern industrial countries towards the countries and peoples of the south on account of resource plundering, environmental damages, and the free occupation of environmental space to deposit wastes, such as greenhouse gases."

In climate negotiations this concept was initially pushed by global south nations as well as NGOs, with a group led by Bolivia submitting a document at the COP15 summit in 2009 stating that:

"The scale and timing of emission reductions by Annex I [industrialised] countries must be sufficient to ensure that developed countries' historical debt for their excessive past consumption of environmental space, and their continuing excessive per-capita emissions, is fully repaid to developing countries."

At the talks, Bolivian negotiator Angelica Navarro made it clear that in practice this meant both significant emissions cuts and also a transfer of finance and technology from richer countries to poorer ones. She told Democracy Now:

"What we are asking is repayment...We are not begging for aid. We want developed countries to comply with their obligation and pay their debt."

Flood damage a home on the island of Kiribati in the Pacific Ocean. Credit: Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert / Alamy Stock Photo.

From the outset, industrialised nations have resisted efforts to characterise their historical responsibility in this way. Their position was summarised at the COP15 by the US chief climate negotiator Todd Stern:

"I actually completely reject the notion of a debt or reparations or anything of the like...Let's just be mindful of the fact [that] for most of the 200 years since the Industrial Revolution, people were blissfully ignorant of the fact that emissions cause the greenhouse effect. It's a relatively recent phenomenon. It's the wrong way to look at this. We absolutely recognise our historical role in putting emissions in the atmosphere that are there now. But the sense of guilt or culpability or reparations, I categorically reject that."

This does not mean that money is off the table in climate talks. Climate finance has always been part of negotiations, albeit framed in a way that is more palatable for wealthier nations.

Since then, the figure has become a touchpoint in climate justice conversations, with campaigners urging governments to honour their commitments.

The chart below shows the most recent available climate finance figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), suggesting the total reached around $80bn in 2019. While a figure for 2020 is not yet included, an independent analysis for the UN at the end of 2020 concluded that "the only realistic scenarios are those in which the $100bn target is not reached this year".

Climate finance for developing nations between 2013-2019, with the $100bn target indicated by the red bar. The gap in private finance in 2015 is due to the implementation of " enhanced measurement methodologies", which also means private flows for 2016-18 are not directly comparable to 2013-14. Source: OECD.

This is a problem for the future of climate negotiations, according to Dr Saleemul Huq of ICCCAD. He tells Carbon Brief:

"If they don't cough up the money, COP26 is already a failure...If you make a pledge and don't meet it, that makes the discussion one in bad faith."

Dr Keston Perry, a political economist and assistant professor of Africana studies at Williams College, tells Carbon Brief that the $100bn target was agreed in the context of "uneven power dynamics at the UN":

"It's not really a scientific amount, it came about as a result of negotiations in which the industrialised countries are really pulling the strings."

There is also the question about the form that climate finance takes. Climate justice campaigners would like to see money and technology provided with " no strings attached ", outside of institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and development aid programmes, where wealthy countries can influence how it is distributed.

The Green Climate Fund, established to help deliver the $100bn target, was seen as a relatively equitable way of distributing finance, as its board includes equal representation from "developed" and "developing" countries, climate justice campaigners tell Carbon Brief. However, only a fraction of total climate finance flows through the fund.

Much of the money provided as climate finance falls short of climate justice campaigners' hopes, as Dr Michael Mikulewicz of Glasgow Caledonian University tells Carbon Brief:

"A lot of development aid has been relabelled as climate aid and in many cases double counted as both, so there is no additional money in many cases...there really isn't much appetite for anything like a direct transfer of wealth to the global south."

Most climate finance also comes in the form of loans, with the share of total money distributed in this way to different groups of nations indicated by the blue bars in the chart below. This is "making countries that are most marginalised more indebted to global north countries," says Perry.

Public climate finance according to type of instrument (2016-19). Source: OECD.

Oxfam estimates that of the roughly $60bn in public climate finance reported by developed countries in 2017-2018, the " true value " is closer to $19-22.5bn per year once loan repayments, interest and "other forms of overreporting" are discounted.

Angelique Pouponneau, a former adviser for small island states on climate finance who runs the Seychelles' Conservation and Climate Adaptation Trust, says that more radical demands for compensation or reparations simply do not attract consensus agreement in UN negotiations:

"This leaves countries with financing options that are in the form of development aid or loans and, if you ask me if that is fair, I would say, no, it is not. However, I think the thinking about climate justice and its link to climate finance have to go further than the criticism that it is not fair."

Instead, she asks if other avenues, such as climate litigation, could yield more desirable outcomes in international arenas.

There are also justice-based critiques of how and where climate finance is spent. Many countries will need to spend huge sums of money on adapting to climate impacts, yet, as it stands, the majority of climate finance goes towards mitigation - indicated by the purple bars below.

Climate finance provided and mobilised according to focus (2016-19). Source: OECD.

For the first decade of climate negotiations, there was little discussion of adaptation finance at COPs, with talks focusing largely on cutting emissions.

There were references to such funding in the text of the UNFCCC, the world's first climate treaty, in 1992. However, acknowledging it was seen as an "implicit acceptance of responsibility for causing climate change," according to one paper, which adds that vulnerable nations reportedly did not want to derail mitigation talks with conversations about adaptation.

However, this began to change in the early 2000s as warnings from the IPCC about the inevitable need to adapt became starker.

Finally, while it is generally understood that the poorest nations will be most in need of support to tackle climate change, they are far from the main recipients of finance, as the chart below shows.

Climate finance provided and mobilised according to recipient country income group (2016-18 average, USD$bn). Source: OECD.

"By this measure alone, there is a disconnect between the global north's rhetoric and their actual support to SIDS," Dr Janine Felson, climate justice lead negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) tells Carbon Brief.

Pouponneau says this is, in part, because many of these nations are classed as upper-middle or high-income countries, making them less eligible for overseas development assistance despite their high vulnerability to climate change.

Separately, the concept of " loss and damage " has been developed in a bid to generate support for unavoidable or unpredictable climate impacts that cannot be adapted to.

Poorer nations in the UNFCCC process have continued to advocate for some kind of compensation fund for victims of climate change, despite the Paris Agreement explicitly stating it "does not involve or provide a basis for any liability or compensation".

Richer nations, notably the US, have blocked these efforts and largely restricted the talks to discussions of insurance schemes.

While there has been some progress in discussions on this topic over the past decade, what is lacking is a new pot of funding. Civil society estimates have placed the costs of loss and damage at $300-700bn by 2030, rising to $1.2tn per year by 2060.

Harjeet Singh, a senior adviser on climate impacts at CAN International, tells Carbon Brief that it is clear why wealthy nations want to avoid admitting responsibility:

"The numbers are massive and rich countries and corporations know that they are going to be blamed and that's why they have always been scared of recognising loss and damage and the related compensation and liability provision."

No 'false solutions'

Climate-justice activists oppose what they see as "false solutions" to climate change, namely technologies and policies that may cut emissions, but run counter to the wider cause of justice.

This is outlined in the Bali Principles of Climate Justice which state that "market-based mechanisms and technological 'fixes' currently being promoted by transnational corporations are false solutions and are exacerbating the problem".

Prof Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, a philosopher at Georgetown University who has addressed issues of environmental justice, says that, in his view, this is born out of a realistic understanding of the limits of technological innovation:

"I take it that the 'false solutions' rhetoric is an attempt to get us to take our problems seriously. We're not going to 'one weird trick' our way out of the climate crisis because it isn't made of one simple, isolable problem."

There are also concerns that the injustice of climate change could take on another dimension if the costs of addressing it predominantly harm poor and vulnerable people.

"We don't believe in carbon markets. We think that is a dangerous distraction," Meena Raman, legal adviser and senior researcher at Third World Network in Malaysia, tells Carbon Brief.

Climate justice groups say that carbon trading allows nations and companies in the global north to continue producing greenhouse gases while relying on the global south to offset their emissions.

Members of the local community in a tree nursery tending tree seedlings for reforestation in Ethiopia. Credit: Neil Cooper / Alamy Stock Photo.

The protocol contains a Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which aimed to finance emissions reductions in the global south, but has been accused of generating "hot air" - cuts that would have happened anyway.

Critics have also linked CDM projects with human-rights violations, particularly involving Indigenous people, owing to their impact on land and livelihoods.

Similar debates are still ongoing around the much-delayed Article 6 rules of the Paris Agreement. So far, nations have been unable to reach an agreement on these rules.

In 2004, academics and NGOs signed the Durban Declaration on Carbon Trading, which criticised the way in which markets turned "the earth's carbon-cycling capacity into property to be bought or sold in a global market". This became a key foundational text for climate justice groups.

Such concerns are linked to wider criticisms of carbon removal - whether using carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology or mass tree-planting - as Dr Wim Carton, who researches the politics of climate mitigation at Lund University, tells Carbon Brief:

"Carbon removal is uncomfortably compatible with the interests of the fossil fuel industry and the political and economic status quo, which, given the history of delay and denial from these actors, doesn't inspire a lot of trust."

The broad scientific consensus, as outlined by the IPCC, is that achieving the 1.5C or 2C goals of the Paris Agreement will require billions of tonnes of CO2 to be removed from the atmosphere. Even scientists exploring "degrowth" scenarios see a significant role for carbon removal.

Climate justice groups and some scientists have also been critical of the net-zero targets being set by governments and businesses, including countries responsible for 61% of global emissions, as well as fossil fuel firms such as Shell and BP.

They have accused such targets of "disguising inaction", labelling them "polluter-driven greenwashing schemes" and referring to net-zero as " the big con ".

This may seem counterintuitive given the central demand of the Paris Agreement that nations "achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases".

Moreover, the IPCC's recent sixth assessment report says explicitly that reaching net-zero CO2 emissions is a prerequisite to stop further warming of the Earth system.

However, once again the pushback is largely based on the extent to which these targets rely on offsets and carbon removals at the perceived expense of emissions cuts, particularly if the effort is shifted to the global south in acts of " carbon colonialism ".

While some groups and individuals entirely reject the use of net-zero targets - despite the scientific imperative behind them - others take a more nuanced approach, focusing on the way such goals are defined and how they are implemented.

In the UK, the Climate Change Committee has advised that the nation should meet its net-zero target domestically, "without relying on international carbon units". Raman says, in principle, this is not a problem:

"If you do domestically whatever you want to do in terms of balancing the emissions and the sinks that would be fine provided it does not displace communities...But advancing this net-zero as...a panacea for the climate crisis is misleading."

Indeed, as Dr Steve Smith, executive director of Oxford Net Zero, tells Carbon Brief:

"Lots of people are making net-zero pledges, but there is just a lot of ambiguity around how they intend to achieve those...The great majority of pledges are just unclear about whether and how they intend to use offsetting."

Analysis conducted by Smith's team found that across more than 4,000 net-zero targets, only 20% met a "set of basic robustness criteria". The brown and grey areas of the chart below show the lack of clarity around offsets.

"The closer we get to 1.5C...the question becomes less about fair shares in terms of greenhouse gas mitigation and more about fair shares in terms of CO2 removal as well."

One study found that most European countries would be unable to meet their removal targets domestically, meaning they would have to rely on climate finance or offsetting schemes to support removals abroad.

In Carton's view, a " just approach " to emissions removal will require "democratic institutions taking much larger responsibility in defining the kinds and amounts of removal that we want":

"You for example can't leave it up to corporations to define what part of their emissions are 'unavoidable' [and] hence needs to be compensated for by removals - there's an obvious conflict of interest there."

Just transition

Instead of "false solutions", climate justice activists want to see solutions to climate change that not only effectively cut emissions but also ensure that no communities are left behind.

This makes a " just transition ", in which workers and their communities are supported in the shift to a low-carbon economy, central to the idea of climate justice.

The concept of just transition, which originated in US labour unions who forged alliances with environmental justice groups in the 1990s, has since become a key part of international climate discussions. The Paris Agreement itself recognises "the imperatives of a just transition of the workforce".

It has also been embraced at a high level by the likes of the European Commission, which included a just transition fund in its "green deal", and US president Joe Biden, who has pledged to create 10m "well-paying" clean energy jobs.

( Carbon Brief has a detailed explainer article examining the history of "just transition" - plus case studies of it in action.)

For many, a just future includes a need to provide a clean energy supply for everyone in a world where 13% of the population - nearly all of them in Africa - lack reliable access to electricity.

Some appraisals of " energy justice " argue that a low-carbon transition will not necessarily solve wider issues of social justice and marginalisation.

One climate-justice response to this is to emphasise a just transition that includes distributed renewable energy and "non-corporate, community-led climate solutions" that recognise the traditional knowledge of Indigenous peoples and local communities.

Besides affecting communities, a similar "winners and losers" dynamic could also play out in how different nations benefit from the clean energy industry.

"This means that most countries that have ratified the Paris Agreement...will forge ahead with the adoption of low-carbon technologies, even in circumstances where there are no plans that will guarantee a just energy transition."

According to Semalane, besides just-transition funds to protect former fossil fuel workers, technology transfer is important to allow local manufacturing of low-carbon technologies in global south nations. Such transfers are often discussed alongside finance during UNFCCC negotiations.

Fossil fuels and "corporate interference"

At the heart of many climate-justice manifestos - from the Bali principles in 2002 to the people's demands in 2019 - is a simple call to "keep fossil fuels in the ground".

According to the last UNEP production gap report, nations are currently aiming to produce 120% and 50% more fossil fuels by 2030 than would be consistent with the Paris Agreement's 1.5C and 2C goals, respectively.

After Covid-19 took a heavy toll on the fossil-fuel industry, the report's lead author noted that many governments were " doubling down " on the fuels instead of letting struggling projects "die".

Many have argued that to shift fossil fuel demand in line with climate targets, governments should accelerate the process by prioritising supply-side measures, such as getting rid of fossil fuel subsidies and stopping new extraction permits.

This is why carbon border adjustments of the variety being proposed by the EU, which place taxes on imported goods based on the emissions associated with their production, have been criticised and even labelled a form of " economic imperialism ".

Campaigners have also criticised the involvement of corporations in the UN climate negotiations and called for accountability for their "decades of misinformation and political interference in climate policy".

A report from NGO Corporate Accountability in 2017, for example, detailed the ways in which high-emitting industries were seen to be influencing negotiations.

These included shifting the talks towards carbon markets, encouraging private companies' involvement in the Green Climate Fund and the promotion of "greenwashing" climate-smart agriculture.

Activist groups have called for an end to this "corporate interference" and the introduction of a conflict-of-interest policy that would prevent businesses from influencing COP negotiations.

How does climate change affect people unequally?

The negative impacts of climate change are unequally distributed around the world. A recent study found that low-income countries are the most vulnerable to natural disasters. This is because they face some of the most frequent extremes, have the least resources to adapt to the changes and generally have the most rapidly expanding population.

The study also emphasises the issues of " intergenerational climate justice " - that younger generations are not responsible for the majority of historical emissions, but will face the worst impacts from climate change.

The map below shows the difference in the number of climate-linked extremes that a child born in 2020 will face, compared to the number that someone born in 1960 will face, over their respective lifetimes, under two different emission scenarios.

Multiplication factor of extreme weather events in a world where current nationally determined contributions (NDCs) are met, and a world at 1.5C warming. Dark red shows extreme weather events will be five or more times more likely. Dark blue shows extreme weather events will be five or more times less likely. Note for heatwaves the scale is x10. The designations employed and the presentation of the material on this map do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of Carbon Brief concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. Interactive by Joe Goodman for Carbon Brief using Natural Earth data. Based on findings from Thiery et al ( 2021).

The charity Save the Children has published a report focused on the results of this study, entitled: "Born into the climate crisis: Why we must act now to secure our children's rights." It states in its executive summary:

"The children of these low- and middle-income countries will be burdened with the most dangerous impacts of the climate crisis. They have inherited a problem not of their own making."

The difference in climate impacts between countries can lead to what one paper describes as "a vicious cycle [that] keeps some countries stuck in a disasters-inequality trap", holding back their development.

While this effect is most obvious when comparing countries to one another, it is also often clear when comparing different socioeconomic groups within countries.

Heat

Possibly the most direct impact of climate change on people is heat stress. As average global temperatures rise, heatwaves are intensifying - and a recent study found that over one-third of heat-related deaths are driven by climate change.

However, warming is not uniform across the planet. Countries near the equator, such as parts of the Middle East and Africa, are at greater risk of exceeding this limit. The extreme heat is made worse by the fact that many countries do not have the infrastructure to deal with extreme temperatures.

For example, in June of this year, the city of Jacobabad in Pakistan reached 52C, pushing it over the 35C wet bulb temperature limit. This made the city one of only two places on earth to have officially passed the threshold. The Daily Telegraph reported that the extreme heat was exacerbated by the lack of wealth and resources in the region:

"Few have any air conditioning, and blackouts mean often there is no mains electricity. The hospital fills with heatstroke cases from those whose livelihoods mean they must venture out. Stretches of the town's bazaar are dedicated to keeping cool. Shops sell electric fans and low-tech washing machine-sized coolers that emit a refreshing mist. Electric solutions are undermined by frequent power cuts however. In the city centre, residents often lose power for three or four hours, while in more distant areas the gaps are longer."

In one study, authors used 16 climatic metrics - based on mean daily surface air temperature, relative humidity, solar radiation and wind speed - to determine a global threshold beyond which temperature and humidity becomes "deadly" to humans.

The map below shows the number of days that regions were exposed to deadly heat conditions, as defined by the paper, between 1995 and 2005. It also projects how many days a country is likely to cross the threshold under low (RCP2.6), mid (RCP4.5) and high (RCP8.5) emission scenarios by 2090-2100 - showing that the global south is likely to be more severely impacted by extreme heat in the future than the global north.

The number of days that countries were exposed to deadly heat conditions (as defined by the paper) a) between 1995 and 2005, b) by 2100 in RCP2.6, c) by 2100 in RCP4.5, d) by 2100 in RCP8.5. Source: Mora et al (2017).

Another study found that warming will drive inequality in economic activity. The optimal average daily temperature for economic activity is 13C, according to the study. The authors found that as the climate warms, countries in the Northern hemisphere will approach this limit, becoming more productive, while those in the South will exceed this limit and become less productive.

One study finds that in more than 70% of US counties, "neighborhoods with lower-income and higher shares of non-white residents experience significantly more extreme surface urban heat than their wealthier, whiter counterparts". Another study has found that black people are 52% more likely than white people to live in areas of unnatural "heat risk-related land cover". Asian people are 32% more likely and Hispanics 21%.

This issue was highlighted recently after the heatwave that struck the US and Canada in 2021, in a Nature news feature entitled: " Racism is magnifying the deadly impact of rising city heat."

Floods and storms

As the climate warms and sea levels rise, low-lying land is expected to flood more frequently. A recent study found that regions near the tropics will be particularly affected by sea level rise (SLR), concluding that "the burden of current coastal flood risk and future SLR falls disproportionately on tropical regions, especially in Asia".

The study notes that even if global sea levels rise by only one meter by the end of the century, and population number and distribution do not change in this time, the number of people at risk of flooding will rise from 267 million to 410 million people. It adds that 72% of these people will be in the tropics, with 59% in tropical Asia alone.

The map below shows the number of people who would be at risk from 2m sea level rise, assuming that populations continue to grow and migrate.

When combining the impacts of various extreme weather events, the tropical region shown in a box in the map above is often highlighted as an area of particular vulnerability.

Every year, non-profit group Germanwatch produces a "Global Climate Risk Index", analysing to what extent regions have been affected by impacts of weather-related loss events, such as storms, floods and heat waves. The index "quantifies impacts of extreme weather events", taking fatalities and economic losses into consideration.

The map below shows the results of their most recent study ( pdf). "Climate risk index" is mapped for most countries in the world - where a lower score and darker colouring indicates that the country has greater exposure and vulnerability to extremes.

The report highlights the Top 10 most vulnerable and exposed countries, as shown in the table above. It states that the three highest-risk countries - as well as some others further down - are vulnerable mainly due to hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons.

It highlights that, although some countries in the western world are also hit by extreme weather, they generally have more resources to deal with the damage:

"The relative economic losses and the fatalities are usually relatively minor compared to the countries' populations and economic power due to their coping capacity."

Migration and conflict

As the climate warms and more regions of the world become inhospitable, impacts including heatwaves, floods and droughts can cause additional stresses, such as water scarcity and food insecurity. In many regions, these changes are already forcing people to leave their homes.

Science magazine recently ran a special issue on the topic of climate-induced migration, including an editorial that opened with the statement: "Climate-forced population displacement is among the greatest human rights issues of our time."

A policy forum piece in the special issue focused on Bangladesh as an example. It finds that 4.1 million people were displaced as a result of climate disasters in 2019 - amounting to 2.5% of the total population. Meanwhile, it added that "13.3 million people could be displaced by climate change by 2050, and 18% of its coastland will remain inundated by 2080".

Migration can be international or internal, meaning migrants who are displaced within their own country. A 2018 World Bank report finds that climate change could drive more than 140 million internal climate migrants by 2050.

However, climate migration is not just an issue in developing countries. One study into coastal migration in the US concluded that "unmitigated sea level rise is expected to reshape the US population distribution, potentially stressing landlocked areas unprepared to accommodate this wave of coastal migrants".

"Where institutions and governments are unable to manage the stress or absorb the shocks of a changing climate, the risks to the stability of states and societies will increase. Climate change is the ultimate 'threat multiplier' aggravating already fragile situations and potentially contributing to further social tensions and upheaval."

How has climate justice shaped international negotiations?

The struggle for "just" outcomes has played a critical role in shaping international climate negotiations over the past three decades.

When the UNFCCC - the world's first climate change treaty - was established in 1992, climate-justice principles were at its core, albeit not explicitly described in such terms.

The convention includes a " polluter pays " principle, indicating that richer nations should "take the lead" on climate action. Its opening section (below) also alludes to their "historical and current" responsibility for emissions.

It also refers to "common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities" (CBDR-RC) when it comes to tackling climate change.

CBDR-RC appears in the first paragraph of Article 3 (below), which sets out the "principles" that are meant to guide implementation of the convention. This principle, which enshrines the idea of different responses to climate change from different nations, has provided guidance - and driven disputes - in UN climate talks ever since.

The convention also references providing developing countries with "funding, insurance and the transfer of technology" where necessary.

"The convention was actually a very good starting point," Meena Raman from Third World Network tells Carbon Brief.

However, as talks progressed towards assigning percentage targets for emissions cuts within set timeframes, climate justice advocates such as Raman felt that the talks were drifting further away from the original vision of the UNFCCC. As Power Shift Africa's Mohamed Adow tells Carbon Brief:

"We haven't had a solution which is actually effectively operationalising those principles, where we share effort based on equity, based on historical responsibility, based on the differentiated capability of different countries. That never came about."

One key issue is that the convention divides nations into clear groups. Annex I consists of industrialised nations that were members of the OECD in 1992, plus countries with "economies in transition", such as Russia and eastern European states. Annex II only contains the OECD nations, which must provide finance and technology transfer to others.

The least developed countries (LDCs) are given special consideration due to their "limited capacity" to address climate change. Non-Annex I countries are a broad church of "mostly developing" countries, from China to Tuvalu, that are "especially vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change".

This division, which reflects nations as they were in the early 1990s, regardless of their subsequent growth, has been described as the UNFCCC's "greatest weakness". Disputes over which members of which groups should be cutting emissions have shaped COPs ever since.

The first major agreement following the convention was the Kyoto Protocol, agreed in 1997, which - in line with the UNFCCC - only required Annex I nations to stick to emissions targets, amounting to a 5% cut in their total emissions between 1990-2012.

Despite the focus on industrialised Annex I nations, Raman says that climate-justice groups were "disappointed" by the Kyoto outcome, given its focus on market-based solutions and the "very low target" set overall for these countries:

"We knew how that was generated: by sitting around a table and just [coming up with] numbers, it wasn't based on any science really...in terms of what is fair."

The US ended up refusing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, due to the lack of binding targets for big emitters, such as China and India. Ultimately, Canada, Japan and Russia did not take part in the protocol's second commitment period.

As the climate-justice movement grew in the intervening years, there was hope that the COP15 summit in Copenhagen in 2009 would result in a successor agreement to Kyoto that would be fair and equitable for poorer nations.

As demonstrators clashed with police in the streets outside the conference, key groupings of nations were emerging and making their presence felt in the talks, motivated in part by climate-justice principles.

Members of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) - which includes Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela - had begun pushing for a more human rights-based, anticapitalist vision within the climate negotiations.

Meanwhile, amid growing calls - including from poorer developing countries - for the "large developing countries" to cut emissions, China, India, Brazil and South Africa came together to form the BASIC group.

This unexpected alliance has been attributed to shared concerns about a shrinking carbon budget making development harder and a sense that they should not take on the same historical responsibility as industrialised countries.

This text, ultimately backed by 114 parties, invited all countries - not just the richest - to commit to "nationally appropriate mitigation actions" of their choosing, with Annex I parties required to enhance their Kyoto targets by an unspecified amount.

"Whereas before, under the Kyoto protocol, developed countries were legally bound to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by a certain percentage, now countries can submit whatever targets they want without a binding commitment."

According to War on Want's Rehman, the climate-justice movement working alongside sympathetic nations, such as those in the ALBA group, helped to stop this accord from being formally passed, despite mounting pressure from the international community to take action of any kind.

"Without the climate-justice groups we would have had the Copenhagen accord, there is no doubt about it," he tells Carbon Brief. (As it is, while the accord was backed by many nations it was not formally agreed under the UNFCCC.)

A 2C limit for global warming was not included formally in international climate policy until the Cancun COP in 2010, but by that point it had been discussed for decades and was "recognis[ed]" in the Copenhagen accord text.

Many saw 2C as a " guardrail" to prevent "dangerous" climate change described in the UNFCCC text. However, this was not the case among climate-justice advocates, who for many years had been pushing for a 1C warming limit.
In Copenhagen, Sudanese ambassador Lumumba Di-Aping, chair of the G77 group of developing countries, said that 2C would mean "certain death for Africa", stating that the deal being offered was a "suicide pact".

Following the disappointment of Copenhagen, then-Bolivian president Evo Morales announced an alternative COP in 2010, dubbed the World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, or Cochabamba Conference.

The " people's agreement" that resulted from this meeting of civil society, Indigenous groups and government representatives has been described as "by far the most comprehensive exposition on rights to be submitted" to the UNFCCC process, with calls for developed countries to provide both financial compensation and restorative justice.

According to one paper: "The 'people's agreement' was all but ignored by the other participants in the UNFCCC. But it did enable the climate-justice movement to formulate key demands and positions."

At the Durban COP in 2011, nations agreed to forge ahead with a new deal that, unlike Kyoto, would be "applicable to all" nations, both "developing" and "developed". The EU's lead negotiator, Elina Bardram, said it "must reflect today's reality and evolve as the world does", while US lead negotiator Todd Stern stated their position plainly: "If equity is in, we are out."

The deadline for a new climate agreement came at COP21 in Paris in 2015. A sign of at least token recognition of justice came in the summit's opening speech by French president Francois Hollande, who told delegates: "It is in the name of climate justice that we must take action."

The Paris Agreement that emerged from the summit also included language in its preamble (below) that spoke to the concerns of the climate-justice movement. However, the details of the agreement were more nuanced.

Ultimately, advocacy by small island states, "progressive developed and developing nations" in the " high ambition coalition" and supporting civil society groups, saw the 1.5C limit make it into the Paris Agreement as a stretch goal alongside the 2C target.

However, Rehman says there was a "heavy price to pay" for the target, noting the negotiations between US secretary of state John Kerry and small island leaders that saw the removal of language about richer nations providing compensation for loss and damage.

A key contentious point for many observers was the introduction of nationally determined contributions (NDCs), replacing the top-down emissions targets of Kyoto with a bottom-up system where every country sets their own targets, which are not legally binding.

The agreement stresses that these targets would be based on each nation's "highest possible ambition, reflecting its common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities", then continues: "in the light of different national circumstances".

This addition, as well as references to "developed" and "developing" countries rather than the Annexes, emphasises that countries' responsibilities could evolve over time.

This expectation that all nations - both Annex I and non-Annex I - must come forward with their own climate targets, was seen as a move to "wipe out historical responsibility" so that everybody was at "the same starting point", according to Raman.

Members of the newly-formed High Ambition Coalition enter the plenary with Tony de Brum, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Marshall Islands, and US Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern. Credit: Kiara Worth / IISD/ENB.

Harjeet Singh from CAN International tells Carbon Brief that, in his view, "NDCs are [the] antithesis [of] climate justice". He says:

"When you are responding to a global problem, how can you say 'nationally determined'? You should have been given a quota using science and equity as principles."

The inclusion of every nation and the lack of legally binding targets were regarded as concessions to ensure US participation. "They didn't want to go back to their citizens and say 'you know what, yes, India and China need to reduce their emissions, but we also need to look at our historical responsibility'," says Singh.

Supporters of the Paris Agreement argue that such concessions were necessary to produce a successful deal. Moreover, former US climate negotiator Todd Stern has written in Brookings that legally binding targets, "paradoxically, can yield weaker action as some countries low-ball their targets for fear of legal liability".

However, for climate-justice advocates, NDCs have made it even harder to achieve a just outcome from the UNFCCC process. "Using every opportunity to kill common but differentiated responsibility has delayed action," says Singh.

How has it influenced climate activism and politics?

While climate justice can mean different things to different people, its fingerprints can be seen across the shifting climate change discourse in recent years.

Climate-justice campaigners tell Carbon Brief that for years much of the climate narrative both inside and outside the UNFCCC negotiations was dominated by a focus on melting ice and polar bears.

There was relatively little discussion of who was being affected and who was responsible, they say.

Asad Rehman of War on Want, who was previously head of international climate at Friends of the Earth, says that the overriding narrative among NGOs was that if governments were provided with enough information on climate change they "would act rationally and take action":

"Climate justice groups were saying: hold on, that's just not true, because if that was true we would also have solved inequality, poverty and all of these things. You are failing to understand that this is not an environmental issue, it's fundamentally an economic and political issue."

Attention shifted more to the people affected by climate change around the turn of the millennium, as the need for adaptation finance rose up the agenda.

Climate justice groups were critical of global north NGOs - organised in the UNFCCC process under the CAN International grouping - for their closeness to developed country governments and particularly their support for market-based solutions to climate change.

Harjeet Singh, currently with CAN International and formerly the climate lead at ActionAid, says global south countries with high emissions such as India and China were used as "punching bags" in climate messaging:

"Organisations from the global north did not show empathy or sympathy with the challenges that developing countries were facing."

These differences came to a head at COP13 in Bali, when Friends of the Earth International split from CAN and joined with global south organisations to form Climate Justice Now!.

This has since given rise to the Global Campaign to Demand Climate justice, which now forms the other part of the environmental NGO presence at COPs, alongside CAN.

Activists from ecological NGOs carried out a protest on the last day of COP24. Credit: CTK / Alamy Stock Photo.

Over the past decade, particularly since the mobilisation around climate justice at COP15 and its failure to secure an agreement, global north NGOs have adopted more justice-oriented messaging. This shift became apparent at COP19 in Warsaw when hundreds of civil society members from around the world staged a mass walkout.

The framing of climate justice as a "left-wing" project, which stems from the anticapitalist organisations involved in developing it, has faced backlash.

Upon taking up her post as UK climate minister in 2015, Conservative politician Amber Rudd said she understood why many saw climate action as "cover for anti-growth, anti-capitalist, proto-socialism".

Others have argued that tackling climate change cannot be based on socialist perspectives alone and must instead bring in people from across the political spectrum. To this end, Extinction Rebellion has announced it is "not a socialist movement".

Nevertheless, some elements of climate justice have made their way into mainstream politics, even in staunchly capitalist governments. Notably, for example, climate advocates on the left were credited with pushing US president Joe Biden to adopt a strong focus on "environmental justice" in his presidential campaign.

While such rhetoric is not necessarily playing out in government actions, Dr Saleemul Huq of ICCCAD says this shift is "a good start". He adds:

"It's not enough - but lip service means you have won the argument."

How has it influenced climate litigation?

The legal system is increasingly being used as a mechanism to seek climate justice.

In recent years, courts have provided a venue for climate migrants, young people and Indigenous groups to challenge corporations and governments, forcing them to take responsibility for their emissions and take on their "fair share" of climate action.

"Courts have the mandate to consider how action or inaction on climate change affects legally protected interests, such as human rights. In some cases, bringing a court proceeding can allow activists and others to force a debate on how legal obligations to protect those interests should be implemented, even in the face of stagnation or opposition in the political process."

An early, high-profile piece of climate litigation came in 2005 when Inuit people launched - but ultimately lost - a human rights case against the US, in response to its withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol.

As the chart below shows, climate-related case numbers have grown considerably since then, with the total more than doubling over the past five years. Most have aimed to enhance climate action, although there have also been a smaller number of "anti-climate" cases.

The vast majority are still in the US and other parts of the global north, but case numbers are also growing in the global south.

During the first wave of climate cases in the 2000s, which were mainly based on tort and public nuisance actions, plaintiffs struggled to adequately demonstrate why they had a right to bring the case and how they were being affected by climate change.

Another key development has been the so-called " rights turn" in climate litigation. In 2015, a judge in the Lahore High Court, Pakistan, became the first ever to find that the government's delay in implementing its climate policies violated citizens' fundamental rights.

More than 100 cases have now been initiated on the basis of climate change breaching human rights and, according to Omuko-Jung, this is a significant development:

"Invoking fundamental human rights and the state's duty to protect is one of the strategies being used in climate litigation to overcome or get around the restrictive legal standards that have created a challenge in the first wave of climate cases."

There is evidence that this strategy is working. Both the Netherlands and Pakistan made tangible policy changes as a result of the 2015 rulings. Similar suits have since been filed in nations from Belgium to Brazil.

There have been a handful of particularly noteworthy cases in recent years, including Neubauer et al vs Germany, in which young people from Germany, Bangladesh and Nepal raised the issue of intergenerational justice.

They argued that the German climate law was insufficient and would result in unfair constraints on young people's lives, an argument with which the court essentially agreed. The government has since tightened its climate law in accordance with the ruling.

The German case, along with the successful Urgenda vs Netherlands case against the Dutch government and a handful of others have all relied on the idea that nations are not cutting their "fair share" of global emissions and aimed to force them into doing so.

Another recent success for climate justice campaigners was Milieudefensie vs Shell, in which a court ordered the fossil fuel company to significantly reduce its emissions. Setzer explains.

"The court accepted that this would affect Shell's finances, essentially forcing the company to bear a fair share of the costs of mitigating climate change, to which it has been a major contributor, rather than forcing individuals to bear the costs of ever more severe climate impacts."

Friends of the Earth Netherlands (Milieudefensie) celebrate after their successful climate case against Shell. Credit: Milieudefensie / Friends of the Earth Netherlands.

Despite these successes, experts say courts are still not always equipped to address some of the unjust outcomes of climate change.

"Our legal systems are incredibly ill-equipped to deal with climate-induced migration," Ama Francis, a climate displacement project strategist at the International Refugee Assistance Project tells Carbon Brief.

She notes that there are currently no multilateral treaties or national laws that solely address this issue:

"We need to update our laws in light of the fact that climate change is a defining challenge of the 21st century."

Some progress was seen in the case of Teitiota vs New Zealand in which Ioane Teitiota, a Pacific Islander from Kiribati, argued, following his denial of refugee status, that climate change had forced him to leave his home.

While the UN Human Rights Committee upheld New Zealand's decision on grounds that Teitiota was not at imminent risk, it " nonetheless determined that people who flee the effects of climate change and natural disasters should not be returned to their country of origin if essential human rights would be at risk on return".

Litigation could also develop into a tool for vulnerable states to hold the nations and companies they deem responsible for climate change to account. In 2018, Vanuatu foreign minister Ralph Regenvanu revealed his island nation was considering suing fossil fuel companies.

Omuko-Jung says based on the history of international environmental litigation, such cases filed by nations are unlikely to become prevalent, although it is likely that global south citizens and NGOs will continue the emerging trend of taking big polluters to court.

"Courts are now prepared to take decisions in a way that they may have shied away from a few years ago," she says.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
In-depth Q&A: What is 'climate justice'? - Carbon Brief

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When hurricanes, floods or droughts strike, all too often those hit hardest are poor and marginalised communities who bear little responsibility for climate change. This is the central argument of "climate justice" - a reshaping of climate action from a technical effort to cut emissions into an approach that also addresses human rights and social inequality.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Your pension is powerful. Greening it is 21x more effective at cutting carbon than stopping flying, going veggie & switching energy supplier combined.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Commuting Carbon Footprint Calculator - FutureTracker: Measure Your Impact

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Calculate your commuting carbon footprint with FutureTracker’s user-friendly tool. Discover your environmental impact and take actionable steps to reduce emissions for a greener future. Try it now!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The UK’s fibre future is within reach. Together we can create a more connected, productive and competitive economy. Read our Blueprint for a Full Fibre future and the Cebr’s research report to learn more about our commitment to delivering great connectivity to communities across the UK, transforming the way people are able to live and work.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Energy Dashboard - real time and historical GB electricity data, carbon emissions and UK generation sites mapping

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Live and historical GB National Grid electricity data, showing generation, demand and carbon emissions and UK generating sites mapping.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
‘Global weirding’: climate whiplash hitting world’s biggest cities, study reveals

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Swings between drought and floods striking from Dallas to Shanghai, while Madrid and Cairo are among cities whose climate has flipped

# data[].attributes.body
Please review our training

We would also be extremely grateful if you could take a moment to leave us a review on Trustpilot.

These reviews help us reach more people and spread the ripples further, so that eventually, carbon literacy is a norm among all businesses and people! Drop your review here.

Join our mailing list

We share the latest news and recommendations on sustainability, Carbon Literacy, circular economy, and biodiversity in business in our newsletter. Sign up here to stay updated.

Thank you!