The OCT submission, among other things, urged the Commission on Human
Rights to hold the so-called “carbon majors” liable for the harm and risk of harm they
have imposed on Filipino children and future generations. By way of remedy, OCT
urged, among other things, that the major coal, oil and gas companies -- those that bear a
heavy measure of responsibility for the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide that now
disrupts our planet’s energy balance, threating the viability of the climate system on
which Filipinos and others depend – be held responsible not only to phase out emissions
at a very rapid rate, but also to pay for efforts to draw down excess atmospheric CO2.
Last month, the international journal Earth System Dynamics published a study
by a team of 15 climate experts: Young people's burden: requirement of negative
CO2 emissions.2 I served as lead investigator on the study, and lead author on the report –
and I hereby incorporate by reference its analysis into this submission. See Exhibit B,
attached. This work further specifies my answer to a central question relevant to this
Commission’s inquiry, namely, what must be done by responsible parties, including by
the carbon majors, to restore atmospheric CO2 to a level that safeguards the fundamental
right of Filipinos to a viable climate system.3 In brief, we affirm that the work that must
be done requires not only a phase out of fossil fuel emissions worldwide within decades,
2
Hansen, et al., Young people's burden: requirement of negative CO2 emissions, Earth
Syst. Dynam., 8, 577-616 (July 18, 2017), available at https://www.earth-systdynam.net/8/577/2017/.
3
This right and the associated responsibility of the fossil fuel industry, I must observe,
has been recognized by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the
Environment. He stated recently that the obligations of business to respect human rights
and of government to protect against their violation “extend to abuses caused by pollution
or other environmental harm.” John H. Knox, Report of the Independent Expert on the
issue of human rights obligations relating to the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy and
sustainable environment, Par. 79 (Feb. 3, 2015) available at
http://srenvironment.org/2015/03/02/annual-report-to-the-human-rights-council-2/.
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