FAQ

• What is the purpose of this platform?

  Without reparations processes, at-risk communities and future generations are denied the financial resources needed to adapt to the impact of climate change. Despite the Paris Agreement re-affirming the importance of loss and damage to address climate change impacts in 2015, acceptance of liabilities and specific finance are yet to be agreed with current climate financing over-reported and inadequate. In response, at-risk communities and younger generations have turned to non-violent direct action and increasingly litigation to force change. SecondSea.world seeks to support these efforts by stimulating debates on reparations by highlighting projected damages to coastal cities caused by rising sea levels. By identifying the historical and projected emissions of responsible countries we aim to draw attention to their financial liabilities.

• How does it work?

  SecondSea.world draws on leading models of sea level rise and projections of loss and damage for coastal cities according to three scenarios for future global greenhouse gas concentrations. It allocates damages according to proportional national contribution of CO2 emission for each scenario.

• What is causing sea levels to rise?

  Greenhouse gas emissions are responsible for climate changes including sea level rise because ice melts as it warms and water expands. There is a direct, causal relationship between the total amount of CO² released by human activity and the level of warming observed at the Earth’s surface and thus oceans.

• Who caused sea levels to rise?

  Climate change and global warming leading to sea level rise have primarily been caused by the activities of wealthy countries. For example, the United States, China, Russia, Germany, and the United Kingdom together constitute over 50% of all greenhouse gases released from fossil fuels and industrial activity over the past 170 years despite accounting for 25% of the world’s population.

• Who is most at risk of sea level rise?

  Poor communities in coastal and low-lying areas or small island states are at most risk. These areas are currently home to around 680 million people, a figure projected to reach more than one billion by 2050. Failure to mitigate against climate change or to fulfil demands for financial damages caused by climate change also disproportionately burdens future generations with harms not of their own making.

• What are the impacts of sea level rise?

  Impacts of sea level rise include displacement of communities, loss of wetlands, reduced biodiversity, inundation, flooding, subsidence, and increased salinity. A study led by the UK National Oceanographic Centre found flooding from rising sea levels could cost up to $14 trillion worldwide annually by 2100, if the target of holding global temperatures below 2°C above pre-industrial levels is missed.

• Why are some countries more at risk than others?

  It is no accident that the most vulnerable coastal communities are located in former colonies in the global south, especially in Africa, the Caribbean, and South East Asia. Decades of extraction, dispossession, and exploitation have deprived these communities of the funding required to protect themselves from the impact of sea level rise.

• Why are reparations described as the missing pillar of climate action?

  Reparations depend on accepting moral, legal, and financial responsibility for historical harm. Alongside addressing historical harm, reparations should also protect against harm to future generations. Progress on reparations including loss and damage has been systematically frustrated by wealthy nations in order to avoid legal and financial responsibility for causing climate change. Without reparations processes, at risk communities are denied the financial resources they are owed and which are needed to adapt to the impact of climate change. Financing was first raised by the Alliance of Small Island States at the 1991 Rio Earth Summit and included under the heading of “loss and damage” in the 2015 Paris Agreement. Despite thirty years of discussion and numerous commitments, no significant action to address climate finance has taken place. The 2009 pledge by wealthy nations to create a $100 billion annual fund to support adaptation and mitigation by 2020 has yet to be honoured.

• What are reparations? Are they different from loss and damage?

  Reparations emerge from truth seeking processes that centre the experiences of victims. Reparations are the missing third pillar of climate action alongside mitigation and adaptation. They refer to practical, symbolic, and financial compensations for harm and injury such as damages, apologies, public acknowledgements, memorialization, and guarantees of non-repetition. SecondSea.world calculates loss and damage in order to contribute to debate about the financial aspect of reparations processes.

• What are some examples of reparations?

  Reparations have been used to reward injustice by crippling nations with unpayable debts, for example the French state forced Haiti to pay approximately $27 billion to enslavers and their descendants as compensation for its independence. Reparations have also been used to compensate slave owners through cash and stocks paid to enslavers by the British Empire, equalling a debt of £300 billion that was only paid off by British tax payers in 2018. In 2022 the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment report included reference to colonialism for the first time as one of the causes for present day vulnerability of ecosystems and people.

• How do we calculate financial damages?

  There is no single way of calculating financial damages. Financial damage calculations are ultimately political decisions that should emerge from processes that centre the voices of victims. The authors of SecondSea.World's position is that national responsibility for climate change can be derived from the proportional contribution of each nation to the cumulative historical CO2 from 1850 to the present. We acknowledge that other greenhouse gases contribute to global warming such as methane, but they are not part of this calculation. We welcome other proposals for calculating loss and damages as part of the debate on the importance of reparations within climate discourse.

• How accurate are the calculations?

  Estimates for sea level rise and expected mean damages are inherently uncertain and difficult to model. The figures produced by SecondSea.world are current best estimates for future loss and damages. They indicate the magnitude of damages and liabilities in order to stimulate discussion around reparations. They are not intended to be definitive figures for financial damages.

• Why should they pay?

  Countries that have made the largest cumulative contribution to climate change are responsible for its impacts on others according to the proportion of their contribution. Enormous wealth and waste has been generated by early industrialising nations from extractive activities while depriving developing nations of natural resources. These nations have a moral, legal, and financial obligation to at-risk-nations and coastal communities to help them to adapt and thrive.

• WHAT DOES RCP MEAN?

  A Representative Carbon Pathway [RCP] is a greenhouse gas concentration [not emissions] trajectory adopted by the Intergovernmental Panel Climate Change [IPCC].
  
  They set out different increases in global mean surface temperature above pre-industrial levels of 1.6°C [0.9°C-2.3°C] for RCP2.5, 2.4°C [1.7°C-3.2°C] for RCP4.5 and 4.3°C [3.2°C-5.4°C] for RCP8.5 [2].

• WHO ARE SECONDSEA.WORLD AUTHORS?

  SecondSea.world has been created by Adrian Lahoud, Sam Jacoby, and Benjamin Mehigan from the School of Architecture at the Royal College of Art working with Lumumba Di-Aping. SecondSea was brought to life through a collaborative design and development process by Accept & Proceed and ON, The project is supported by research funding from the Royal College of Art. Arabic translation by The Archilogue.