Made.com is a dotcom parable from an earlier era

‘Reparations’, much bandied about at Cop27, is a dangerous word. It speaks of an admission of historic guilt, which no one can deny has a place in public discourse. But its intention is to put a punitive price on guilt itself, rather than to advance collaborative work needed to rectify damage that can be traced back to bad acts, whether committed through greed, prejudice, aggression or ignorance. It says, in short: ‘Don’t send us your supposedly superior expertise and your lectures about how to improve ourselves. Just send cash. And keep sending it until your tortured conscience is assuaged.’

But in relation to climate impacts, the argument over who pays, who receives and how much would rage for decades while the damage gets worse and the repair costs rise. And do you imagine China would ever pay a single cent? Boris Johnson was right when he said at Sharm El Sheikh that no country has the resources to pay in full for past carbon emissions, but ‘what we can do is help with the technology that can help fix the problem’. And of course that technology will come far more from entrepreneurship and private-sector industry than from the interventions of governments, whose role should be prodder and catalyst.

This theme has been in my mind since my recent visit to Minneapolis, where I was startled when a black activist, having catalogued the many ways the white majority had disadvantaged his community, replied to the well-intentioned question ‘What should happen next?’ with the single word, ‘Reparations’. Not better schools, better housing, more help for small businesses, more cross-community co-operation; not better oversight of local policing. I don’t suggest for a moment he had no reason to feel bitter about history, but bitterness rather than willingness to rebuild was what I took from his answer.