Summer camp is back! While this one won’t be a Youth N’Power-hosted camp, some representatives from the Youth N’Power Network, as well as 20+ other participants from around the country, will be present and engaged in the 1st United States Climate Reparations Camp! From August 5-9, 2024, ActionAid USA, alongside Justice Is Global and Minnesota Interfaith Power and Light, will be sponsoring a fully-funded (travel, room & board, programming included) Climate Reparations Camp for up to 25 people (ages 18+) at Women’s Environmental Institute (WEI) just outside of Minneapolis!

Why a Global Climate Reparations Camp?

On July 13, 2023, John Kerry (former U.S. special envoy on climate change) told a congressional hearing that “No, under no circumstances” will the United States pay climate reparations to developing countries hit by climate fueled disasters (Reuters). This came after the House of Representatives foreign affairs subcommittee asked Kerry whether or not the US would contribute to the Loss & Damage Fund – a fund that would pay countries that have been hit the hardest by climate catastrophe. This fund has been a hard-sought fight for many years, with global climate and environmental justice groups and organizers, along with many Global South countries, asking for climate reparations.

Why climate reparations? Well, countries like the U.S. (who is the largest historical emitter of greenhouse gasses) have had a huge hand in driving the climate crisis. That means that both at home and abroad, our emissions, decisions, expansion, and interests have been responsible for what has come to pass. Countries and communities globally have been harmed or even destroyed by climate change and environmental injustice. We have made commitments (stated, signed-on) to the rest of the world that we would take accountability for our actions over time, and that we’d pay up for what we have participated in. The U.S. has fallen short of these commitments, time and again. 

At every COP (Conference of Parties hosted by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) I have been to, I have heard developing nations ask, plead, for Global North countries like the United States, to facilitate a fast, fair, funded, feminist, phaseout of fossil fuels and to pay up for the harms we have caused in the name of accumulation of wealth and development. And yet, our country, and its leaders, have truly been avoiding accountability and refusing to commit to actual transformational change. This has led to global climate catastrophe and entire nations being swept away, unable to recover after disasters strike yearly. The repeated call for action within Global North countries is heard widely by organizers for environmental justice, but goes unheeded when it comes to decision-makers. 

How can the US heed this call?

And so, we as citizens of the U.S., have been asked to organize ourselves to begin to shift the understood narrative around exactly what our responsibility is to the rest of the world. Youth have been at the forefront of driving change, action, and accountability for those who say they represent us. While 2024 is not centering Loss & Damage, it is centering climate finance, and the need for us to accept and answer for our Fair Share of what we’ve contributed to the climate crisis globally. It has come time for us to step into a state of Global Repair, and to ensure that no no more harm is caused. That calls for us to accept our Fair Share for what we’ve contributed to crises, and for us to pay countries that we have had a substantial hand in destroying. This is a hard sell, especially given the current political state of, well, everything. That being said, the time for narrative shift around what the U.S. knows of its responsibilities to the rest of the world, has arrived. This camp is an attempt at doing this.  

What will this camp do?

Together, the young people who attend this camp will explore topics of global climate justice, including how climate justice in the United States is impossible without climate justice for our comrades around the world, especially in the Global South. We will connect domestic struggles around climate, reparations, land back, disaster care, sacrifice zones, and financial redistribution to the struggles of communities in the Global South who are also on the frontlines of climate disaster while at the same time fighting against legacies of colonialism, imperialism, and the ravages of global capitalism.

In the global context, we will explore the “Fair Shares” framework of understanding how different countries have different responsibilities for addressing the climate crisis – and how the United States has a particularly important role that it has never come close to accepting. Within the United States, our framing of climate reparations specifically centers and names occupation, slavery, genocide, and displacement from colonization. 

We will envision futures in which the climate crisis does not inherently mean destruction for communities who have been and continue to be systematically extracted from, and we will support and empower participants to take forward organizing for global justice in their communities and with their local and national elected officials.

Who can attend the camp?

We are excited to host young people (ages 18+), and youth-adjacent folks who are part of movements, local groups, or organizations that are actively working towards achieving climate justice or making a difference in their communities towards achieving a more just and safe future for all. Attendees will have the opportunity to pitch sessions or workshops they would like to run as well as participate in sessions centered around climate justice, equity, and reparations.

Admission to the camp is free and the host organizations are covering accommodation, food and transportation to and from the camp. 

What should one expect at camp?

Our goal for the camp is to connect and empower participants to be well-equipped to demand global climate justice – by organizing in your communities, calling for change from your elected officials, and whatever else makes sense in your context. The camp will be an opportunity to learn new skills through workshops and trainings, build relationships and networks, share stories and lessons learnt from the field, and collaborate on opportunities for creative mobilization.

What should one expect after camp?

We hope to plug camp attendees into organizing structures that are feeding into existing movements demanding climate justice both in the United States and globally. This could include, potentially, organizing efforts targeting moments like UN Climate Week in New York in September, targeting the U.S. government in the lead-up to the next round of UN climate negotiations in November. However, we are also very open to attendees identifying local organizing or advocacy opportunities to further the struggle for climate justice, and supporting bottom-up activities where possible.

Who will be attending the camp?

Attendees of the camp will be made up of organizers, advocates and campaigners from the US.

When this camp goes well, we will re-create it annually, able to reach more people and build a powerful base of those who care, and are ready to change our current reality.