This episode of Future Perfect | Futur Antérieur features Professor Fadhel Kaboub, who highlights the urgent need for decolonizing climate frameworks alongside a radical global economic transformation. He critiques the existing global financial system, in which $2 trillion flows annually from the Global South to the Global North, moving in the wrong direction while undermining development. Kaboub argues that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank exacerbate this imbalance by imposing conditionalities through loans, deliberately creating debt crises that keep the Global South trapped in cycles of dependency.

Fadhel Kaboub highlights the lack of sovereignty over food, energy and technology in the Global South, which limits the ability of these nations to negotiate as equals. He calls for South-South cooperation to challenge these dynamics and build alternative financial architectures that prioritize just transition and sustainability.

The conversation emphasizes that climate justice cannot be achieved without addressing the root causes of inequality—insisting that the global system must be decolonized to achieve decarbonization. Market-based approaches like carbon trading are dismissed as "pollution permits," designed to maintain the extractive colonial hierarchy through greenwashing. Kaboub advocates for transformative measures such as debt cancellation, unconditional grants, and the equitable transfer of green technologies.

He stresses that Africa must no longer serve as a source of cheap labor and raw materials for the Global North. True economic and climate justice requires a radical transformation, rethinking of economic roles, not mere reforms. Kaboub concludes with a call for collective action among Global South nations to dismantle exploitative systems and create a new framework for sustainable development that ensures justice for all.

Fadhel Kaboub is an Associate Professor of Economics at Denison University (on leave), and the president of the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity. He is the author of Global South Perspectives on substack. He is also a member of the Independent Expert Group on Just Transition and Development, an expert group member with the Global Solidarity Levies Task Force, a member of the Earth4All Economic Transformation Commission, a Steering Committee member with the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, a member of the African Forum on Climate Change, Energy and Development, and serves as Senior Advisor with Power Shift Africa. He has recently served as Under-Secretary-General for Financing for Development at the Organisation of Southern Cooperation in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. His most recent co-authored publication is Just Transition: A Climate, Energy, and Development Vision for Africa (May 2023). He is based in Nairobi, Kenya, and is working on climate finance and development policies in Africa. You can follow him on X/Twitter @FadhelKaboub.

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This episode of Future Perfect | Futur Antérieur, co-hosted by African Futures Lab Director Liliane Umubyeyi and Program Assistant Helene Himmer, features a compelling discussion with Chenai Mukumba, Executive Director of Tax Justice Network Africa, on the urgent need to fund climate reparations.

Mukumba unpacks the enduring economic impacts of colonialism, which have left African nations dependent on extractive industries and disadvantaged in global value chains. The current international financial structure, led by institutions like the IMF and World Bank, she explains, reinforces this dependency and lacks the democratic accountability needed to support meaningful economic reform.

The conversation explores tax justice as a pathway for financing climate reparations. Mukumba details how African countries lose substantial revenue to tax evasion and corporate abuses, proposing that taxes on wealthy individuals, corporations, and fossil fuel industries could provide crucial resources for climate adaptation. Advocating for a democratized global tax framework under the United Nations, Mukumba argues that this shift would better serve Global South nations compared to the OECD-led model, which tends to prioritize wealthier nations’ interests.

Chenai Mukumba is the Executive Director at the Tax Justice Network Africa (TJNA). She is based in Nairobi, Kenya and overall provides strategic leadership and direction to deliver on TJNA’s mission and vision in its various thematic areas. Chenai has a master’s in International Relations from Wits University, Johannesburg, and is currently pursuing a master's in Taxation at the University of Oxford.

Tax Justice Network Africa (TJNA) is a research and advocacy organisation with a robust network of civil society organisations with the united effort of leading tax justice voices across the continent. Through its Nairobi Secretariat, TJNA collaborates closely with its member civil society organisations to curb illicit financial flows (IFFs) and promote progressive taxation systems. In partnership and collaboration with other regional economic governance institutions, TJNA advocates for tax policies with pro-poor outcomes and tax systems that curb public resource leakages and enhance domestic resource mobilisation. TJNA’s vision is to see a new Africa where tax justice prevails and ensures equitable, inclusive, and sustainable development.

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This episode of Future Perfect | Futur Antérieur is co-hosted by Patrick Toussaint, an international environmental lawyer, and Helene Himmer, Program Assistant at African Futures Lab. Both welcomed the special guest Adrián Martinez Blanco, Director of La Ruta del Clima. The discussion finds roots in a recent case about the ongoing struggle of communities in Côte d'Ivoire against the Belgian multinational SIAT over allegations of land grabbing, deforestation and human rights violations related to its palm oil and rubber plantations. Martinez Blanco emphasizes the concept of "loss and damage," criticizing the newly established loss and damage fund for its lack of adequate support from developed countries. He also critiques Paragraph 51 of the Paris Agreement, which allows industrialized nations to evade accountability for climate-related harms, complicating efforts to secure reparations and address the realities of vulnerable communities.

The conversation highlights the urgent need for a robust international legal framework to effectively address climate change and protect affected communities. Martinez Blanco stresses the importance of climate litigation as a tool for holding Global North states and corporations accountable for perpetrating environmental crimes and damages. He calls for unity amongst Global South countries to adopt a rights-based position in negotiations, focusing on specific reparations rather than diluting the conversation into broader concepts. Despite challenges such as limited resources, risks and threats faced by environmental defenders, Martinez Blanco advocates for pragmatic approaches rooted in human rights to address climate change impacts, underscoring that the lived experiences of affected communities should be central to climate justice negotiations.

Adrián Martinez Blanco, MA, is the Director of La Ruta del Clima, a Costa Rican NGO that promotes public participation in climate and environmental decision-making and has been an observer, advocating at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) climate summits since 2014. Adrián’s research areas include climate impacts, loss and damage, human rights, public participation and international climate law. He is a current PhD candidate at the University of Eastern Finland and holds a Master's degree in Environment, Development and Peace with a speciality in climate public policies.

Patrick is an international lawyer, policy analyst, and researcher with over eight years of experience in international environmental law and policy. He specializes in critical areas such as climate change, biodiversity, and air pollution. In addition to his legal expertise, Patrick excels as a communicator and facilitator, demonstrating a strong commitment to promoting diversity, mediation, and conflict resolution in his work.

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