Key Messages on Human Rights and Climate Change
Climate change impacts, directly and indirectly, an array of internationally guaranteed human
rights. States (duty-bearers) have an affirmative obligation to take effective measures to
prevent and redress these climate impacts, and therefore, to mitigate climate change, and to
ensure that all human beings (rights-holders) have the necessary capacity to adapt to the
climate crisis.
Climate justice requires that climate action is consistent with existing human rights
agreements, obligations, standards and principles. Those who have contributed the least to
climate change unjustly and disproportionately suffer its harms. They must be meaningful
participants in and primary beneficiaries of climate action, and they must have access to
effective remedies.
OHCHR’s Key Messages on Human Rights and Climate Change highlight the essential
obligations and responsibilities of States and other duty-bearers (including businesses) and
their implications for climate change-related agreements, policies, and actions. In order to
foster policy coherence and help ensure that climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts
are adequate, sufficiently ambitious, non-discriminatory and otherwise compliant with human
rights obligations, the following considerations should be reflected in all climate action,
including agreements to be negotiated at the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
1. To mitigate climate change and to prevent its negative human rights impacts: States
have an obligation to respect, protect, fulfil and promote all human rights for all persons
without discrimination. Failure to take affirmative measures to prevent human rights harms
caused by climate change, including foreseeable long-term harms, breaches this obligation.
The Fifth Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change confirms that climate
change is caused by anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases. Among other impacts,
climate change negatively affects people’s rights to health, housing, water and food. These
negative impacts will increase exponentially according to the degree of climate change that
ultimately takes place and will disproportionately affect individuals, groups and peoples in
vulnerable situations including, women, children, older persons, indigenous peoples,
minorities, migrants, rural workers, persons with disabilities and the poor. Therefore, States
must act to limit anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases (e.g. mitigate climate change),
including through regulatory measures, in order to prevent to the greatest extent possible the
current and future negative human rights impacts of climate change.
2. To ensure that all persons have the necessary capacity to adapt to climate change: States
must ensure that appropriate adaptation measures are taken to protect and fulfil the rights of
all persons, particularly those most endangered by the negative impacts of climate change
such as those living in vulnerable areas (e.g. small islands, riparian and low-lying coastal
zones, arid regions, and the poles). States must build adaptive capacities in vulnerable
communities, including by recognizing the manner in which factors such as discrimination,
and disparities in education and health affect climate vulnerability, and by devoting adequate
resources to the realization of the economic, social and cultural rights of all persons,
particularly those facing the greatest risks.
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