A Systematic and Searing Indictment of the Carbon Majors; a Stark Warning to the Financial Sector; and
a Vital New Tool for Courts and Human Rights Bodies
In December 2015, the Philippines Commission on Human Rights (CHR) launched a landmark National Inquiry on Climate Change in response to a petition filed by Greenpeace Southeast Asia and individual petitioners from across the Philippines. The petition asked the Commission to examine the impacts of climate change on the human rights of the Filipino people and to consider the role of 47 major fossil fuel producing companies (the Carbon Majors companies) in driving the climate crisis, obstructing climate action, and contributing to resulting climate harms. On May 6, 2022, the Commission released its final report on that nearly seven-year inquiry.
Spanning some 160 pages, the final report undertakes a comprehensive and systematic analysis of climate science; the human rights dimensions of climate change; the severe and mounting impacts of climate change on the human rights of Filipinos; the contribution of the Carbon Majors companies’ products and operations to climate change and its resulting harms; and the overwhelming evidence that the Carbon Majors companies and the fossil fuel industry have been on notice of climate risks from their products for more than half a century, but misled investors, regulators, and the public about climate risks for decades. The Commission analyzed that evidence against global human rights standards applicable to States and to business entities in the Philippines and worldwide.
This roadmap briefly summarizes the process to date, and distills the Commission’s analysis, findings, and recommendations, with a focus on issues of corporate accountability for present and future climate harms.