Pursuing Climate Justice in Bonaire

Bonaire—a low-lying island off the coast of Venezuela—is particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. According to simulations undertaken by Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam on behalf of Greenpeace Nederland, Bonaire will “suffer excessively” from the inexorable rise of global temperatures, less predictable rainfall, surging sea levels, coral bleaching, cyclones, droughts, and floods (Van Beukering 2022 et al., 7). This, in turn, will hobble Bonaire’s economy, which is highly dependent on SCUBA divers drawn to the island’s western shore. By 2050, it is expected that some parts of the island will be permanently underwater.

Bonaire became a Dutch special municipality in 2010 and, unlike the nearby islands of Aruba and Curaçao, is governed not only by an island authority but by the Dutch central government. Its integration into the Dutch polity set the stage for the 2024 decision by eight plaintiffs who reside in or have ties to Bonaire to bring a formal legal challenge insisting that the Dutch state not only do more to curtail its carbon emissions but also help the island fortify itself against the encroachment of the sea. Filed with Greenpeace Nederland, the lawsuit hinged on questions of inequality and discrimination and endeavored to “break colonial structures” (De Kroon 2026). On 28 January 2026, the Hague District Court handed down a judgment requiring the Dutch state to comply with their demands, ruling that the Netherlands had discriminated against Bonaire by doing less to aid the vulnerable island than it had its European territory (Kaminski 2026). Crucially, it compelled the Dutch state to reformulate its climate adaptation plan not just for Bonaire but for the entire kingdom.

For some, the unequal treatment of islanders evokes the legacies of Dutch colonialism and even the Dutch slave trade, which conscripted Bonaire (as well as Aruba, Curaçao, and other territories in the Americas) in a centuries-long program of commodifying peoples abducted from western Africa (Mallory, Seidenstein, Burke, and Jackson 2025). In 2023, King Willem-Alexander formally apologized for the kingdom’s involvement in the “horrors of the slavery past” (Moses 2023). The case involving Bonaire is not settled: in April 2026, the Dutch government announced that it would appeal the ruling and asked that the judgment be suspended (Rijksoverheid 2026).

Christopher Snow Hopkins