BRIEFING NOTE: Bonn Climate Change Conference, SB62 – Integrating Human Rights into Climate Action
The climate crisis continues to intensify and wreak havoc across the globe, threatening people and the planet. We are halfway through this critical decade to take meaningful, effective action to equitably phase out fossil fuels and halt deforestation so as to keep global temperature rise below 1.5°C, and 2025 is also the year of new Nationally Determined Contributions. The 62nd session of the Subsidiary Bodies (SB62) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is a stepping stone towards COP30, which will be critical in signalling ambition, and for States to demonstrate and take meaningful steps to ground the negotiations in a human rights-based, just framework.
The UNFCCC and its negotiations do not exist in a bubble, but rather in the context of a global system. The UN climate talks are taking place in a time when multilateralism and international law are facing massive challenges due to rising authoritarianism and genocide. At the same time, two international courts – the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) – will soon issue advisory opinions on the obligations of States related to climate change. These follow on the advisory opinion issued by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) last year on States’ obligations related to climate change under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and may precede an advisory opinion by the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (AfCHPR), as a climate justice petition requesting one was filed with that court earlier this year. During the oral hearings at the ICJ, many States made the connections between climate change and human rights, the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, and the full body of international law applicable to the climate crisis, as well as the need and obligation to provide a remedy. The UNFCCC should acknowledge, welcome, and respond to the findings of these advisory opinions.
To date, the UN climate regime has not produced the results at the speed needed to prevent dangerous climate change and the associated human rights harms. The UN climate regime will be the strongest when it acts in concert and coherently with the broader international landscape, including human rights obligations.
This briefing note outlines the priorities of the Human Rights and Climate Change Working Group for SB62.