In late June, Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty, released a report on climate change and human rights that received significant international coverage. This report does not beat around the bush: we are on the verge of a situation where “the wealthy pay to escape overheating, hunger, and conflict while the rest of the world is left to suffer.” It also, quite explicitly, zooms in on the various human rights institutions and organizations, their work, and in his view, their inadequacy. With the Human Rights Council currently in session, the report raises a timely question: Is the Council doing enough to combat climate change, or is it just kicking the can down the road?
About the work of the Human Rights Council (HRC), Alston says,
“The [HRC] resolution proceeds as if the challenge is to manage the negative consequences of climate change for particular groups, rather than recognizing that the enjoyment of all human rights by vast numbers of people is gravely threatened. Those threatened by climate change do not divide up neatly into categories such as developing/developed nations or men/women. A much broader framework is required. Finally, there is no recognition of the need for the deep social and economic transformation, which almost all observers agree is urgent if climate catastrophe is to be averted. The actions prescribed by the Council are entirely inadequate and reflect a deep denial of the real gravity of the situation.”
Currently, the Human Rights Council is having its 41st session, in which a resolution on human rights and climate change is being negotiated. This would be its ninth resolution on climate change in roughly ten years’ time. Time to look back and reflect: Is the Council’s response to climate change as “inadequate and in deep denial” as suggested by the Special Rapporteur, or is the Council stepping up to meet this unprecedented challenge?
Now is a crucial time for the Council to respond to this criticism and demonstrate that the institution remains up to the challenge. In early June, more than 60 countries participated to the 2019 Geneva Forum on climate change at the Human Rights Council. This provides us with the perfect opportunity to reflect on the work accomplished and the opportunities ahead.
The Forum explored ten years of climate change at the Human Rights Council, put in the current context of the urgency of climate action and the need for increased policy coherence. Discussions looked back at the Council’s resolutions, as well as other tools and mechanisms it has established, such as the Universal Periodic Review, the Council’s Special Procedures, and its Advisory Committee. Most of the discussions, however, focused on what lies ahead: advancing the political work of the Council, identifying gaps and needs, and revealing potential opportunities for its engagement. In light of recent developments — declarations of “climate emergencies” by the UK, Canada, France, and Ireland, the upcoming UN Secretary General Climate Action Summit in September, school strikes for climate, you name it — the time has come for the Council to strengthen its role and provide its own contributions to tackle the climate crisis we’re facing.
When the Council first addressed the interlinkages between human rights and climate change in 2008, the institution entered largely unchartered territory. The work that followed was mostly aimed towards recognizing these linkages. From the Council’s almost annual resolutions touching on various aspects of climate change, to its influence paving the way for the inclusion of human rights language in the Cancun and Paris Climate Agreements, to the growing integration of climate change in the Universal Periodic Review. Therefore, this aim clearly has been achieved: There is no doubt that climate change is a human rights issue.
The aim for the Council’s work should now shift to contribute to a world in which warming is limited to 1.5°C. As emphasized in IPCC’s well-known report on 1.5°C, staying below 1.5°C is still possible if rapid and far-reaching transitions are made within the next ten years. And since it’s all hands on deck, the Human Rights Council’s work is far from over. With impacts of climate change being increasingly felt by people all over the world, it’s time for the Council to put in the work to protect people from further climate impacts.
And there exist opportunities for the Council to do so. For example, the Council can include a larger focus on mitigation and phasing out fossil fuels. It could also seek to tackle the role of the wealthiest countries in the broader context of climate justice — in line with recent developments in the work of the Human Rights Treaty Bodies — and guide the interpretation of the obligation for all countries to cooperate towards the realization of human rights globally.
However, the Human Rights Council has yet to grapple with the issue of climate justice. In its Universal Periodic Review, the Council actually made far more climate-related recommendations to countries on the frontlines of climate change than it did to countries who have had the greatest role in causing the climate crisis. Protecting human rights in the context of ongoing climate change requires institutions to address the root causes of this crisis. They shouldn’t only remind those governments already struggling to cope with climate impacts that they aren’t doing enough to protect their populations.
The urgency of the climate crisis requires the Council to build a bridge between its work and the implementation of climate policies at the national level. One way in which this can be achieved is to ensure that human rights obligations are considered when countries set the level of their mitigation ambition. As heads of States and governments converge in September in New York for the Climate Action Summit, we ask ourselves: Will they be able lay out domestic measures that truly meet the scale of the challenge and embrace the urgency of this ongoing crisis?
Additionally, the Council can support and promote these people-centered and rights-based domestic climate policies in light of the upcoming deadline in 2020 for Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to hand in their new and enhanced Nationally Determined Contributions. These Nationally Determined Contributions are the yardstick with which to measure national mitigation and adaptation efforts and which, when combined, show us whether we’re on a pathway towards limiting climate change to 1.5°C. This forms an excellent opportunity for the Council to advance their work and have an actual impact on the ground.
And what about a Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Climate Change? Talk of such a mandate has been heard over the years, but no action has been taken (yet). There is plenty of work to be done and inadequate action by countries sadly makes this mandate ever more needed.
Alston’s strongly worded report is a timely wake-up call for the Council, with its next resolution on human rights and climate change being considered as we speak. Ten years ago, when the issue first came on its agenda, the Council broke new ground and established the linkages between the two issues. Since then, with every additional year of inaction, the urgency to tackle the root causes of climate change grows. The Council should seize the opportunity they (and the broader human rights community) have now to step up to the plate, go beyond a “ticking the box” approach denounced by Alston, and deliver resolutions that truly match the scale of crisis we’re facing.
By Jolein Holtz, Fellow, Climate & Energy Program
Originally posted on July 11, 2019