BRIEFING NOTE: Bonn Climate Change Conference, SB60 – Integrating Human Rights into Climate Action
We are in the midst of a climate emergency, which is causing human rights violations, destroying ecosystems and biodiversity, and drastically increasing inequality across the globe. COP28 did not live up to this urgency, with a weak outcome of the first Global Stocktake failing to give a strong signal that the world needs to urgently phase out all fossil fuels and leaving many loopholes, and a flawed operationalization and limited capitalization of the Loss and Damage Fund.
At the 60th sessions of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Subsidiary Bodies (SB60) in Bonn, Parties are coming together to lay the groundwork for decisions to be made at COP29 in Azerbaijan on key topics such as climate finance, the just transition, adaptation, and the Loss and Damage Fund. Human rights standards and principles as well as approaches that prioritize equity, social and climate justice and inclusivity, are integral to ensuring that those decisions are just and intersectional, and lead to more effective and sustainable outcomes as recognized by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Similar to COP28, COP29 will be presided over by a petrostate with a detrimental human rights record, demonstrating the UNFCCC’s current glaring inability of dealing with conflict of interest, and a need for strong guarantees on civic space and respect for human rights in host countries.
This briefing note outlines the priorities of the Human Rights and Climate Change Working Group for the Bonn Climate Conference 2024 or SB60.