FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 5, 2018
Geneva — Today the Human Rights Council adopted by consensus a new resolution addressing the human rights implications of climate change. Through the resolution, States reaffirmed that the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is important to protecting human rights, three months ahead of the release of the IPCC’s Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C.
Sébastien Duyck, Senior Attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), released the following statement:
Climate change is widely recognized as one of the main threats to the exercise of human rights in the 21st century. Along with previous decisions by the Human Rights Council and other UN institutions, today’s resolution helps define more clearly how states must respond to this challenge.
The resolution recognizes the importance of pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C in protecting human rights, which is a welcome reminder just three months prior to the IPCC’s release of its special report on global warming of 1.5ºc later this year. While the Paris Climate Agreement mentions the 1.5ºC target, the HRC resolution is the first time that States refer to it in the context of human rights.
This recognition must now be translated into action, as governments are required under the Paris Agreement to review their climate mitigation policies. So far, none of the major emitters of greenhouse gases has implemented sufficient policies to achieve the objective of 1.5°C. Scientists have repeatedly warned us that if States fail to urgently improve these plans, it would make it impossible to keep climate change below 1.5°C.
Through this resolution, States also acknowledged the necessity of promoting the rights of women in the context of climate change and in guaranteeing their equal participation at all stages of climate policy making. Given the particular impacts that climate change and climate-related policies have on women, it is encouraging to see the movement of multiple UN bodies to recognize the urgent need to address the relationship between climate change and women’s rights, with the ongoing implementation of a Gender Action Plan by the UNFCCC, the recent adoption by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discriminations Against Women (CEDAW) of a General Recommendation on gender aspects of climate-related disaster risk reduction, and this most recent HRC resolution.
Contact: Geneva, Sébastien Duyck, sduyck@ciel.org