Climate Reparations

Over-emitting countries hold responsibility for climate breakdown and owe reparations to low-emitting countries for atmospheric appropriation and climate-related damages.

Global emissions exceeded the planetary boundary in 1988 and the world is now nearing 1.5 degrees of warming. With business as usual, 2 degrees will be breached before 2050, violating the Paris Agreement. But not all countries are equally responsible for this crisis. This graph, published in Nature Sustainability, shows that the global South has barely exceeded its fair share of the 350ppm boundary, counting emissions from 1960.1 Meanwhile, the global North has already burned through its fair share of the 1.5C and 2C limits,2 driving the world toward dangerous climate breakdown.

The interactive graph at the bottom of the page allows users to see how each country performs relative to its fair-shares of the various carbon budgets, calculated from different base years (1850, 1960, and 1992).  

All countries must reduce emissions to zero by 2050, to achieve the Paris Agreement objective of making every effort to limit warming to 1.5 degrees.  However, in this scenario the global North will overshoot its collective fair-share of the 1.5°C carbon budget by a factor of three.  This map shows the extent of overshoot by country.  Emissions are measured since 1960. Countries in green are projected to remain with their fair share of the 1.5C limit.

The over-emitting countries are appropriating the atmospheric fair-shares of poorer countries, denying them the use of fossil fuel combustion and forcing them to mitigate much faster than would otherwise be needed.3 This imposes significant costs, which can be calculated using carbon prices from the IPCC consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees. This approach allows us to quantify the compensation that is owed by over-emitting countries to the rest of the world.

Taking this approach, the over-emitting countries are liable to pay US$192 trillion to the rest of the world by 2050 to compensate for the appropriation of their atmospheric fair-shares. This represents an average disbursement to those countries of US$940 per capita per year. For many people in the global South, this would be transformative. These two searchable tables allow users to see what countries are liable to pay or entitled to receive, in both absolute and per capita terms.

The first table covers countries that are liable to pay compensation (in red), while the second table covers countries are that entitled to receive compensation (in green).

 

 

Note that this study focuses only on compensation that is owed for atmospheric appropriation, which should be considered additional to broader questions about the costs of transition, adaptation and damages.

Also note that responsibility for excess emissions is held largely by the wealthy classes who have high lifestyle emissions and who wield disproportionate power over provisioning systems and national policy.  The responsibility for compensation must be allocated accordingly. See our page on carbon inequality. 

The interactive charts below allow users to see how different countries perform relative to their fair-shares of various carbon budgets, calculated from different base years. These charts, designed by Andrew Fanning, can also be seen at the website A Good Life for All Within Planetary Boundaries.

Notes

Suggested citation: Hickel, J., Fanning, A., Sullivan, D., & Zoomkawala, H. (2025). “Climate reparations”, Global Inequality Project. Accessed at: https://globalinequality.org/climate-reparations

1. Fanning & Hickel (2023). 

2. For the purposes of analysing environmental inequality, "Global North" refers to the USA, Canada, Israel, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Russia, the EU-28 and other wealthy European economies. "Global South" includes most of Asia, Africa and Latin America. See our note on Country Groups and Aggregates for more information about how scholars have classified countries for the analysis of carbon inequality.

3. For more on the concept of atmospheric appropriation and demands for climate reparations, see the People's Agreement of Cochabamba (2010).

 

References

Fanning, A. L., & Hickel, J. (2023). Compensation for atmospheric appropriation. Nature Sustainability. 

People's Agreement of Cochabamba (2010). Available at: https://pwccc.wordpress.com/2010/04/24/peoples-agreement/