78
and obligation under international law.389 States should regulate everything within
their territory such that emissions are drastically reduced, the standard being limiting
warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius from pre-Industrial levels, as stated in the Paris
Agreement. This target has been increased to below 1.5 degrees, as recommended by
the IPCC390 in order to prevent the worst-case scenarios that could impact human rights.
States must hence drastically reduce the carbon footprint of not only State activities, but
also of non-State actors. This involves drastic reductions in the use of fossil fuels and the
transition to renewable energy sources by 2030.391
C. Refusal of Governments to Engage in Meaningful
Action to Mitigate Climate Change may be Categorized
as a Human Rights Violation
Citizens may hold their governments accountable for failure to mitigate–not just adapt
to–climate change. The pursuit of the State obligation to mitigate climate change cannot
just be framed as aspirational, where the standard of fulfillment is vague and the timeline
uncertain. Concrete metrics must be set against which States may be held accountable.
Failing in this, States enable the human rights of their citizens to be harmed, which equates
to a violation of their duty to protect human rights.
For the purpose of holding States in failure of their human rights obligations in the context
of climate change, which failure may, itself, be categorized as a human rights violation, it
is sufficient to establish the absence of meaningful State resolve and action to address the
major anthropogenic actors and factors driving global warming. That science cannot yet
establish to a high degree of accuracy the causal relationship between GHGs and specific
climate-related effects on particular parties is a problematic only in establishing legal
389
Relationship Between Climate Change and Human Rights Report, supra note 221.
390
IPCC, (2018). Global warming of 1.5°C. An IPCC Special Report on the Impacts of Global Warming
of 1.5°C Above Pre-Industrial Levels and Related Global Greenhouse Gas Emission Pathways, in
the Context of Strengthening the Global Response to the Threat of Climate Change, Sustainable
Development, and Efforts to Eradicate Poverty [V. Masson-Delmotte, P. Zhai, H. O. Pörtner, D.
Roberts, J. Skea, P.R. Shukla, A. Pirani, W. Moufouma-Okia, C. Péan, R. Pidcock, S. Connors,
J. B. R. Matthews, Y. Chen, X. Zhou, M. I. Gomis, E. Lonnoy, T. Maycock, M. Tignor, T. Waterfield
(eds.)]. In Press.
391
IPCC, 2022: Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change.
Contribution of Working Group III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change [P.R. Shukla, J. Skea, R. Slade, A. Al Khourdajie, R. van Diemen, D.
McCollum, M. Pathak, S. Some, P. Vyas, R. Fradera, M. Belkacemi, A. Hasija, G. Lisboa, S. Luz,
J. Malley, (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York, NY, USA. doi:
10.1017/9781009157926.001 [hereinafter referred to as IPCC, AR6, WGIII].
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