Season III Episode 6 (Part 1) - Reparations for climate and biodiversity loss: Deep dive into challenges and solutions

In this episode of Future Perfect | Futures Antérieur, hosts Liliane Umubyeyi and Hélène Himmer welcome Meghna Abraham, an international human rights lawyer and expert on economic, social and cultural rights, to discuss the biodiversity crisis, its causes and possible solutions. Meghna explains that biodiversity loss is accelerating at an unprecedented rate, with up to one million species at risk. This threatens the resilience of ecosystems and their ability to mitigate climate change. The main drivers of this crisis are land-use change, deforestation and extractive industries, largely fuelled by overconsumption in high-income countries, which consume six times more resources than low-income countries.

It highlights how colonial legacies and trade policies continue to exploit the Global South, perpetuating economic inequalities and reinforcing destructive agricultural and industrial models. Despite growing awareness, international frameworks favour market-based solutions such as 'bio-credits', which allow companies to offset environmental damage rather than stop harmful practices. Meghna argues that true accountability requires a justice-based approach, including legal responsibility, reparations and stronger protections for indigenous and most affected communities.

Meghna Abraham calls on civil society to challenge corporate control of biodiversity policy and advocate for a fundamental shift in global economic structures. The conversation underscores the need to shift the narrative around biodiversity, reframing it as a justice issue rather than an environmental concern, and demanding change that prioritises conservation, equity and sustainability. 

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Meghna Abraham is an international human rights lawyer and expert on economic, social and cultural rights. She has led campaigns, investigations, and policy development to reform unjust economic policies and models and worked with communities for over two decades to challenge the negative impacts of these policies and models on their lives. She currently advises foundations and NGOs on strategic and policy issues and is also focusing on reparations for harms arising from the climate and biodiversity crises.

She was formerly the Executive Director of the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR). Prior to joining CESR, she was employed by Amnesty International, including as the Director of Global Issues, Head of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and Senior Researcher on Corporate Crimes. Meghna has also worked at the Natural Resource Governance Institute, International Service for Human Rights, Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions, World Organisation Against Torture, Human Rights Centre, University of Essex, and Centre for Child and the Law at the National Law School. She has been an expert consultant for various NGOs and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Meghna is the Chair of the Board of the Natural Resource Charter Limited, a member of the Advisory Council of the Bonavero Institute for Human Rights, and a Fellow of the Nottingham Human Rights Law Centre. She is a qualified Indian lawyer who holds a BA LLB (Hons) degree from the National Law School of India University, Bangalore, and BCL and MPhil in Law degrees from the University of Oxford.

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