Developed countries are disproportionately responsible for climate change, having overwhelmingly contributed to and benefited from polluting activities through history. Due to this, developing countries feel developed countries owe them finance to deal with the unavoidable impacts of climate change they are experiencing. Developed countries are hesitant to increase climate finance, or divert it from existing mitigation and adaptation plans and activities. 

These tensions around historical responsibility of developed countries in climate negotiations are difficult, and intensifying as climate impacts become more severe. Ongoing disagreements around Loss and Damage (Article 8) of the Paris agreement, and the increasing urgency of ambitious climate action have re-opened debates about equity in the international climate arena.

Achieving an effective and inclusive climate regime requires resolving conflicts about historical responsibility and future-oriented climate action. Despite differences in context, peace and reconciliation processes offer a wealth of experience for addressing the tensions between past-oriented concerns (historical responsibility) and future-oriented desires (mitigation).

This project produced a proposal that applies lessons from peace and reconciliation processes to international climate policy debates. It developed a new approach to climate equity that may be better suited to reconciling concerns of historical responsibility and mitigation by applying lessons from efforts to address complex conflicts with parallel struggles – such as the transition from apartheid in South Africa. 

The contexts may seem profoundly different, but international climate policy debates share three key similarities with conflicts in which peace and reconciliation processes have been pursued:

1. Unavoidable interdependence and mutually harmful consequences of not finding an agreement;
2. Limited ability to address justice concerns through existing legal systems (national or international); and
3. Profound disagreements about how the past and future should relate in a period of transition.

Through aseries of academic research and policy workshops, this project assessed the theoretical and political utility of a peace and reconciliation approach in the climate context. The product of this process was a set of policy briefs and recommendations, that illustrate how this approach could be used to reshape the contours of current climate negotiations.

Intertwined with the COP processes, this project was able to deliver a number of impactful events:

• The First Workshop was held at the Hague Institute for Global Justice in September 2015.
• The Second Workshop focused on developing a politically oriented, concrete policy proposal of how to apply lessons and tools from transitional justice to the climate context. It was held in Brussels in March 2016.
• The Third Workshop  (Equity after Paris) coincided with the UNFCCC sessions in Bonn in 2016, that led up to the 2016 loss and damage mechanism review.
• The project was concluded with a final roundtable dinner to present the findings of the policy briefs produced under the project, held back-to-back with the COP22 in Marrakech in November 2016.

The project research lead was Climate Strategies Member Sonja Klinski. This project was funded by the KR Foundation and supported by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation {KAS).

PL Sonja Klinsky has recently published a book, underpinned by the research completed in this project: The Global Climate Regime and Transitional Justice. It is available to rent or by from the Routledge website.