The Case for Climate Reparations by Fossil Fuel Companies: Ethical Foundations, Monetary Estimates and Feasibility

Abstract

This contribution argues that the fossil fuel industry has played a major role in human-driven climate change and should agree to shoulder the burden of the associated damages. To this end, the article develops a responsibility-based approach to operationalize and quantify fossil fuel companies’ climate reparations and locate them in the current political economy context. It explains the rationale for a responsibility-based approach to climate reparations, investigates their foundational elements and proposes a Global Climate Reparations Fund to manage them. The article continues by providing a typology of climate reparations and their operational aspects, which makes it possible to quantify the financial burden as amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars annually over the coming decades. The political economy of climate reparations, with particular attention to their feasibility, is then analysed. The article lays the groundwork for a reasoned dialogue within and between civil society and political representatives of different backgrounds on the responsibility of fossil fuel companies in the climate crisis and on their role in rectifying climate damages through reparations.