Being Present to Climate Change: Inheritance, Repair, and the Restless Work of Justice
Being Present to Climate Change
Inheritance, Repair and the Restless Work of Justice
Image by Ahmet Sali
Friday, 10 October 2025, 12pm - 2pm · S2.09, Social Sciences Building,
University of Warwick
About the Event
Our lands, waters, and bodies carry the layered scars of colonisation, extraction, and broken promises. We inherit more than land — we inherit unpaid debts and silenced histories, carried not only in archives but in our bloodlines, in the songs, struggles, and silences passed down to us. From the rice paddies of displaced villages in the Philippines to the coal mines of Indonesia and the oil pipelines of Canada, from Palestine’s besieged farmlands to the industrial corridors of China, our ancestors bore the first wounds of stolen labour, poisoned soil, and stolen futures.
To be present to this inheritance is to feel the weight of unfinished work. It is to recognise that repair cannot begin without truth-telling, atonement, and the dismantling of the systems that continue to harm.
In conversation with Lisa TilleyLink opens in a new window (Department of Development Studies, SOAS), whose work explores key sites of colonial/capitalist expansion – the plantation, the mine, the smelter, and the city – and the intersections of race and political ecology, Mohammed UsrofLink opens in a new window (Palestinian Institute for Climate Strategy) whose advocacy links climate resilience to the struggle against occupation; Joy ReyesLink opens in a new window (Manila Observatory) who has worked at the forefront of climate litigation in the Philippines and beyond, Sahar ShahLink opens in a new window (Bristol Law School) whose work unsettles the law and colonial narratives of extraction in Canadian tar sands and Anil Yilmaz-VastardisLink opens in a new window (Essex Law School) whose work challenges the complicity of corporations in the climate and environmental crisis — we ask:
- When harm is both historic and unfolding, what does atonement require from those who benefit from it?
- How do we unmask and refuse the ‘false solutions,’ carbon trading, toxic exports, green growth narratives and cultivate alternatives that are rooted in sovereignty and reparative justice?
- What would it mean to treat repair not as charity or corporate responsibility, but as a binding, transnational, intergenerational debt to transform the systems that make this harm possible?
- What legal pathways and non-legal pathways can be used to seek these reparations and accountability?
Together, we will explore what it means to tend the circle; to commit to the restless, patient, and global work of justice, where being present is both inheritance and responsibility.
Moderators: Jodi-Ann WangLink opens in a new window (Oxford Department for International Development) and Celine Tan (Warwick Law School).
This event is organised with the Centre for Law, Regulation and Governance of the Global Economy (GLOBE), Warwick Law School.
The event will be followed by a networking meeting for climate and environmental governance researchers from 2pm - 3pm.
There is no need to book for this event but please email if you would like to attend the networking session or if you have any dietary or access requirements.
About the Speakers
Dr Lisa TilleyLink opens in a new window is Senior Lecturer in Development Studies at SOAS, University of London. At present, Lisa is working on the extraction and processing of nickel for the electrification of vehicle markets, with a particular focus on the sacrificial socioecologies these processes produce. She is also finishing a book on Liberation Ecology for Pluto Press.Lisa’s wider research is mainly anchored in critical approaches to political ecology and political economy with particular attention to structures of race, gender, and class.
Mohammed Usrof Link opens in a new windowisPalestinian Institute for Climate Strategy (PICS)Link opens in a new window.
Dr Anil Yilmaz VastardisLink opens in a new window is Honorary Associate Professor at the GLOBE CentreLink opens in a new window, Warwick Law School. She is Senior Lecturer at Essex Law School and the Co-Director of the Essex Business and Human Rights Project. Her main research interests are in the fields of international investment law and business and human rights. Her research addresses the relationship between corporate law, international investment law, human rights law, and tort law, examining how these areas can and should interact so as to operationalise human rights standards in the modern business context.
Jodi-Ann WangLink opens in a new window is a DPhil candidate in International Development and a member of St Hughs College, University of Oxford. Her DPhil project investigates the rise and fixation of financialised capital as a promised solution to the global climate crisis, how this came to be, and what this means for climate justice.She is also a Global Policy Fellow at the Just Transition Finance Lab Link opens in a new window at the LSE Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and Environment.
Professor Celine TanLink opens in a new window is Professor of International Economic Law at the University of Warwick and a Co-Director of the GLOBE CentreLink opens in a new window, Warwick Law School. She is leads a project on Climate Finance for Equitable Transitions (CLiFT), a multi-institutional and multi-stakeholder initiative aimed at exploring the climate finance supply chain within the context of the multilateral climate change regime, international financial architecture and the multi-layered landscape of international economic law. She is Co-Convener of the Warwick Network for Equity and Exchange in Climate Governance and Strategy (NEXUS)Link opens in a new window with Emellyne Forman.