Geneva, October 4 – The Human Rights Council in Geneva has taken on resolutions and discussions on specific aspects of climate change, with Special Rapporteurs contributing reports on thematic angles within their mandates. The UN Special Rapporteur, in her report titled ‘The imperative of defossilizing our economies’ (A/HRC/59/42), has clarified states’ international human rights obligations and businesses’ responsibilities to phase out fossil fuels and related subsidies within the current decade.
The report underscores the severe and widespread human rights impacts of the fossil fuel life cycle, connecting evidence on the global climate crisis, toxic pollution, biodiversity loss, global plastic pollution, and harmful petrochemical production. The report emphasizes the need to address fossil fuels beyond the energy sector through system-wide transformation.
Recommendations include defossilizing the economy, reprioritizing energy demands, carefully phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, ‘defossilizing’ information systems to protect human rights in public opinion and democratic debate from undue commercial influence, remediating fossil fuel-related harm, advancing multilateral reforms, and ensuring business responsibilities. The science is clear: climate change poses an existential threat to people and the planet, with rising sea levels, floods, heat waves, droughts, desertification, water shortages, and the spread of tropical and vector-borne diseases intensifying climate change-related extreme and slow-onset events.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned in its Sixth Assessment Report that an increase above 1.5°C compared to pre-industrial levels in global average temperatures would lead to ecosystem collapse and jeopardize the livelihoods of millions of people, especially affecting those already in situations of vulnerability.
Effectively addressing climate harm requires states to take meaningful measures to stop greenhouse gas emissions, tackle climate change impacts, and address related losses and damages in a way grounded in human rights and accounting for intersecting forms of discrimination and marginalization, while ensuring the safe and meaningful participation of affected communities, civil society, and Indigenous Peoples in relevant policy spaces to achieve ambitious and equitable climate action, building toward access to effective remedies and means of adaptation to enjoy lives of human dignity.
A global crisis requires a global rights-based response, making it critical to apply a human rights-based approach where global policies and measures addressing climate change are guided by principles and standards derived from international human rights law. The various human rights mechanisms and instruments present in Geneva, such as the Human Rights Council, Special Procedures, and Human Rights Treaty Bodies, play an increasingly pivotal role in addressing the human rights impacts of climate change.
Looking ahead, the focus shifts to the implementation of these recommendations and the ongoing discussions at the Human Rights Council on the human rights impacts of climate change. The need for urgent and transformative action to defossilize economies for a just transition is more pressing than ever.
