3. To ensure accountability and effective remedy for human rights harms caused by
climate change: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights, and other human rights instruments require States to guarantee
effective remedies for human rights violations. Climate change and its impacts, including sealevel rise, extreme weather events, and droughts have already inflicted human rights harms
on millions of people. For States and communities on the frontline, survival itself is at stake.
Those affected, now and in the future, must have access to meaningful remedies including
judicial and other redress mechanisms. The obligations of States in the context of climate
change and other environmental harms extend to all rights-holders and to harm that occurs
both inside and beyond boundaries. States should be accountable to rights-holders for their
contributions to climate change including for failure to adequately regulate the emissions of
businesses under their jurisdiction regardless of where such emissions or their harms actually
occur.
4. To mobilize maximum available resources for sustainable, human rights-based
development: Under core human rights treaties, States acting individually and collectively
are obligated to mobilize and allocate the maximum available resources for the progressive
realization of economic, social and cultural rights, as well as for the advancement of civil and
political rights and the right to development. The failure to adopt reasonable measures to
mobilize available resources to prevent foreseeable human rights harms caused by climate
change breaches this obligation. The mobilization of resources to address climate change
should complement and not compromise other efforts of governments to pursue the full
realization of all human rights for all including the right to development. Innovative measures
such as carbon taxes, with appropriate safeguards to minimize negative impacts on the poor,
can be designed to internalize environmental externalities and mobilize additional resources
to finance mitigation and adaptation efforts that benefit the poorest and most marginalised.
5. International cooperation: The UN Charter, the International Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights, and other human rights instruments impose upon States the duty
to cooperate to ensure the realization of all human rights. Climate change is a human rights
threat with causes and consequences that cross borders; thus, it requires a global response,
underpinned by international solidarity. States should share resources, knowledge and
technology in order to address climate change. International assistance for climate change
mitigation and adaptation should be additional to existing ODA commitments. Pursuant to
relevant human rights principles, climate assistance should be adequate, effective and
transparent, it should be administered through participatory, accountable and nondiscriminatory processes, and it should be targeted toward persons, groups, and peoples most
in need. States should engage in cooperative efforts to respond to climate-related
displacement and migration and to address climate-related conflicts and security risks.
6. To ensure equity in climate action: The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development,
the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, and ‘The Future We Want’ all call for the
right to development, which is articulated in the UN Declaration on the Right to
Development, to be fulfilled so as to meet equitably the developmental and environmental
needs of present and future generations. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
calls for States to protect future generations and to take action on climate change "on the
basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and
respective capabilities”. While climate change affects people everywhere, those who have
contributed the least to greenhouse gas emissions (i.e. the poor, children, and future
generations) are those most affected. Equity in climate action requires that efforts to mitigate
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