Climate change in the Caribbean is no longer something we are preparing for; it is something we are living through. As communities and their livelihoods are impacted across the region, there is a growing insistence that this is not only an environmental crisis, but a matter of rights, responsibility and power.
CANARI has been leading, advocating for and supporting this movement. And to do so effectively, we are committed to engaging with the thinkers, advocates and communities who are shaping this discourse across the region. Here are some of the resources we’ve been engaging with.
- Background and foundational knowledge
Why does climate justice matter?
Why climate justice should be at the centre of nature-based solutions in the Caribbean
By Nicole Leotaud / Caribbean Natural Resources Institute (CANARI)
What if climate change is not, at its core, an environmental problem, but a question of justice? This piece, written by CANARI’s Executive Director, reframes nature-based solutions through the lived realities of Caribbean communities, asking who benefits, who decides and who is too often left out. It invites a more careful, grounded understanding of what it means to build resilience and who must be centred in that work.
Climate justice in the Caribbean
By Stacey Alvarez de la Campa
In the Caribbean, climate change is not a distant abstraction; it is braided into history, identity and everyday life. This piece moves across the terrain of justice, from Indigenous knowledge to gendered impacts, tracing how vulnerability is shaped and sustained. What emerges is a vision of climate action that is as much about dignity and self-determination as it is about survival.
- Policy and frameworks
How is climate justice being defined, governed and advanced?
Escazú is for you (Episodes 1–4)
CANARI Caribbean podcast
This series moves through the three pillars of the Escazú Agreement—access to information, public participation and justice in environmental matters—while asking what they mean in practice across the Caribbean. Through conversations with advocates, legal practitioners and community voices, it traces how rights take shape, not only in policy, but in lived experience. What emerges is a sense that climate justice is not only about what is promised, but what is made possible when people are informed, included and able to act.
Climate reparations and the language of justice: a legal imperative
By Jameela Joy Reyes and Sahar Shah
There is power in naming. And in law, naming can compel action. This commentary traces how the language of climate agreements has quietly shifted responsibility away from those most accountable, even as calls for reparations grow louder. It suggests that legal frameworks may be one of the few tools capable of transforming climate justice from aspiration into obligation.
By Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh
How does a landmark legal ruling affect real-world accountability? This analysis follows the United Nations General Assembly’s efforts to translate the International Court of Justice’s landmark climate advisory opinion into political action, revealing the negotiations, resistance and alliances that shaped the outcome. More than a procedural update, it explores how international law can move from principle to practice, strengthening demands for accountability and protection for communities already living with climate harm. For the Caribbean, where the consequences of climate change are deeply felt, it offers an important glimpse into how global legal developments could strengthen the pursuit of climate justice.
Call to action for climate justice in the Caribbean 2026
By the Caribbean Natural Resources Institute (CANARI)
Emerging from a regional forum hosted by CANARI, this brief sets out a collective call to action on climate justice in the Caribbean. It centres human rights, participation and accountability, while insisting that principle must find its way into practice.
Diplomacy & the fossil fuel treaty
Voices of Change podcast
Featuring Dr. Alana Lancaster
What might it take to treat fossil fuels not as inevitabilities, but as something to be phased out deliberately and collectively? In this conversation, law and diplomacy meet the urgency of the moment, as the idea of a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty is explored through the lens of small island states and climate justice. It offers a glimpse into the quiet, complex negotiations shaping what a ‘just transition’ could mean for Caribbean nations on the frontlines.
A just transition framework for CARICOM trade
By Peta-Gay Facey Wilson / TESS Forum on Trade, Environment & the SDGs
Here, the ‘just transition’ is held not only as an environmental shift, but as a question of how Caribbean economies move, trade and sustain themselves under pressure. Moving across sectors from energy to the orange economy, the paper traces both points of vulnerability and spaces for growth, while grounding its approach in equity, participation and economic resilience. It gestures toward a transition that must be shaped through trade itself, attentive to who is exposed, who benefits and how the region positions itself in a changing global landscape.
- Lived experiences and human impacts
How are people experiencing climate injustice?
Climate justice for indigenous communities in the Caribbean (Part 1)
Global Yaadie podcast
Featuring Sirito Yana Aloema
This episode listens closely to land, memory and the voices of Indigenous communities whose lives remain deeply enmeshed with the natural world. Through the experiences of the Kaliña people of Suriname, it traces how climate change is not only environmental disruption, but a threat to culture, livelihood and continuity. What stays with you is the insistence that any conversation on climate justice must begin here, with those who have long protected what is now at risk.
Balance and equity: gender perspectives in climate justice
Stronger Caribbean Together
Featuring Christine Samaroo and Princess Charles
What does climate justice look like when viewed through the lens of gender? This episode brings forward voices working at the intersection of environmental and social justice, tracing how climate impacts deepen existing inequalities while also opening space for transformative change. It expands the frame, reminding us that resilience is not only ecological, but deeply human, shaped by care, vulnerability and resistance.
- Data and evidence
What do the numbers, systems and research tell us?
Climate change, the Caribbean Sea, and the ocean economy – securing livelihoods of Caribbean people
By Laverne Walker
The Caribbean Sea holds livelihoods, memory and movement, but it is also under mounting strain. This paper traces both the slow and accelerating shifts, from warming waters and bleaching reefs to rising seas and the ripple effects across fisheries, tourism and coastal life. It gestures toward a more integrated way of thinking about adaptation, where ecosystems and economies are not separate, but deeply entwined.
Navigating the just transition: trends and knowledge for the Caribbean
By Kristin Qui, Marli Klass, Vasu Beepath, Carlon Mendoza / Climate Analytics
What does the transition towards the sustainable use of resources look like in a region marked by both diversity and shared histories? In much of the Caribbean, the shift is less about leaving industries behind and more about centring sustainable livelihoods, resilience and financial equity. The paper points to a transition that must be shaped in context, attentive to uneven realities and grounded in the conditions that define life across small island states.
- Getting involved
What can you do?
Climate justice: a youth guide to legal responsibility, policy action and accountability
By the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
This guide places young people not at the margins of climate action, but at its legal and political centre, tracing how they are using rights-based frameworks to challenge inaction and demand accountability. It moves through the tools now being utilised in this space, from law and policy to advocacy strategies that are beginning to redefine what responsibility looks like for governments and businesses alike. What lingers is a quiet but steady shift, from asking for change to insisting on it, with the language and mechanisms to follow through.
Viewed as a mosaic, these pieces point to a clear and necessary shift in how we approach climate justice: one that asks us to listen more closely, reckon more honestly and act with greater care and accountability. Climate justice, in this sense, is not a destination, but a practice that is being shaped collectively across the Caribbean and beyond.