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Photo: UNFCCCMonitoring the UN Climate Negotiations
As changes in climate become more extreme, their affects are being hardest felt throughout developing countries. Since 1994, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has laid out actions to limit the increase of global average temperatures and confront the impacts of climate change.
The States that are Parties to the Convention meet every year in the so-called Conference of the Parties (COP) to review their commitments, the progress made in fulfilling them, and pending challenges in the global fight against the climate crisis.
At COP21 in 2015, they adopted the Paris Agreement, which seeks to strengthen the global response to the climate emergency, establishing a common framework for all countries to work on the basis of their capacities and through the presentation of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) that will:
- Limit the increase in global temperatures to 2°C compared to pre-industrial levels and continue efforts to limit it to 1.5°C;
- Increase the capacity of countries to adapt to the impacts of climate change; and
- Ensure that financing responds to the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Our focus areas
THE CLIMATE CRISIS AND HUMAN RIGHTS
The climate crisis, due to its transversal character, has repercussions in various fields, geographies, contexts and people. In this regard, the Preamble to the Paris Agreement states that it is the obligation of States to "respect, promote and fulfill their respective obligations on human rights, the right to health, the rights of indigenous peoples, local communities, migrants, children, persons with disabilities and people in vulnerable situations and the right to development, as well as gender equality, the empowerment of women and intergenerational equity."
AIDA at the COP
COP25: Chile-Madrid 2019
At COP25 in Madrid, Spain, we advocated for the inclusion of the human rights perspective in various agenda items. We promoted the incorporation of broad socio-environmental safeguards in the regulation of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, which refers to carbon markets. We closely followed the adoption of the Gender Action Plan, as well as the Santiago Network, created "to catalyze technical assistance […] in developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse affects of climate change." We also encouraged the inclusion of ambitious and measurable targets for the reduction of short-lived climate pollutants in the climate commitments of States.
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COP20: Towards a climate deal with human rights protections
The impact of climate change on human rights is clear. Yet no international treaty on climate change makes reference to human rights, nor does any human rights treaty reference climate change. The next climate agreement, recently drafted in Lima and to be signed in Paris next year, provides an important opportunity to make a clear, explicit connection between climate change and human rights through the incorporation of specific language. During an event at the UN Climate Summit, Gustavo Alanís, president of the Mexican Center for Environmental Law (CEMDA), cited the human rights to food and water, explaining that rising temperatures reduce crop productivity and decrease the availability of clean water. This relationship highlights the material vulnerability of many people's living conditions. Effective adaptation measures are needed to ensure that conditions do not worsen, added Manuel Pulgar Videl, Peru's Minister of the Environment and President of the COP20. María José Veramendia Villa, an AIDA senior attorney, recalled that the impacts of climate change on human rights were addressed in a 2009 report prepared by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. The report said that climate change will affect the right to life by causing increased hunger and malnutrition, and that related diseases would have consequences for the growth and development of children. Following the report, the UN Human Rights Commission issued a resolution that stated, "the impacts related to climate change have a series of implications, both direct and indirect, on the full enjoyment of human rights…" Agreements signed at COP16 in Cancun, Mexico provide that the State Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change "must fully respect human rights" in all climate change related activities. Given this background, added Veramendi Villa, a challenge for 2015 is to ensure that the new climate agreement includes specific and comprehensive language on the obligation of States to protect, promote, and respect human rights in all its climate actions. "If this happens," she explained, "we will have a binding international instrument that will guide the States' climate actions, and help them to implement the obligations they already have on human rights." For more information from COP20 and to post comments, visit our interactive blog at aida-cop.org
Read moreCOP 20: And what about the effective use of climate finance?
The amount of money required to confront the effects of extreme climate changes is much larger than currently sought in global negotiations. Clearly more resources are needed, but it is also important to track the effective use of climate finance now being mobipzed. "We must recognize the funding gap for adaptation programming," said Annaka Peterson Carvalho of Oxfam America. She was a panel member Wednesday at a COP20 event entitled, A fair and accountable cpmate finance regime: Confronting the contentious issues. In her opinion, we must determine, on the basis of science, the real costs that countries must rightfully bear, and we need a responsible finance system to determine how much money each country needs and where it will come from. Sandra Guzmán, General Coordinator of the Cpmate Finance Group of Latin America and the Caribbean (GFLAC), agreed that while it is necessary to have more resources for the fight, it’s also necessary to use them effectively. "It’s not just about asking for more money," she said. "We must change priorities at a national level to distribute funding by reassigning it to activities that allow for reduced emissions." Guzmán explained that the Climate Finance Group has developed a methodology to know how much money each country receives, and how much they spend in deapng with climate change. Their analysis encompasses many activities, including some that are not traditionally labeled as relating to cpmate change. She identified five challenges in the task of tracking the use of cpmate finance: Transparency and access to information; Definition of the criteria of climate finance; Institutional structure and communication between different institutions; Public participation in the evaluation of projects; and Better methodology for monitoring, reporting, and verification to analyze the effective use of the money. The experience of the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities (iCSC) in the Philippines demonstrates that accountability on climate finance is “everybody’s business,” according its Executive Director, Red Constantino. The Institute tracks not only committed funding for adaptation, but also how it is channeled locally. The work that Constantino has done has enabled him to identify difficulties in apgning funding with the real needs and priorities of vulnerable communities; provide limited opportunities to involve communities in decision-making about adaptation; and understand that while money flows, it is not necessarily used efficiently or completely. Andrea Rodríguez, senior lawyer at AIDA, also referred to the importance of ensuring that climate change programs and projects meet the requirements of individual countries and are directed by them. To be effective, she said, the new climate regime must find ways for countries to monitor climate finance, learn from the experiences of other institutions, and reallocate their resources to be effective. "Climate finance responds to a specific need, it is not general assistance for development," Rodríguez added. "Public participation is central to the process, and if we know how much money we need and how to use it, we will know how much to ask for in global negotiations. In this sense, Constantino highlighted coordination between local and national levels, between governments and civil society. For more information from COP20 and to post comments, visit our interactive blog at aida-cop.org
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COP20: Protecting human rights in all climate actions
By Víctor Quintanilla, AIDA Communications Coordinator, @vico_qs All countries have an obligation to fight climate change. But they must also protect the human rights of their people. The fact that officially recognized clean development projects aimed at combating climate change often cause grave human rights violations was discussed Tuesday at a side event at the COP in Lima. Co-hosted by AIDA, the p for International Environmental Law (CIEL), and Carbon Market Watch, the side event asked the question, "How can the lessons learned from the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) influence the design of climate finance mechanisms?" Máximo Ba Tiul stood before the room and spoke of the grave impacts of the Santa Rita hydroelectric project, which was registered under the CDMof the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. A representative of the Tezulutlán Indigenous Council of Guatemala, Ba Tiul explained that the so-called clean development project has caused human rights violations, including the death of children, in at least 20 surrounding communities. Implementation of hydroelectric projects, Ba Tiul explained, often imply human rights violations: Shirking international standards, Santa Rita was approved without consulting or obtaining the free, prior, and informed consent of affected populations. Hugh Sealy, President of the Board of the CDM, replied that he was "disturbed" to hear that a CDM-registered project had allegedly violated human rights. While hydroelectric projects such as Santa Rita are promoted as clean energy solutions to climate change, scientific evidence has shown that large dams, particularly those in the tropics, release large quantities of methane, a greenhouse gas 20 to 40 times more potent than carbon dioxide. "All countries must respect human rights," Niranjali Amerasinghe, director of CIEL’s Climate & Energy Program, said during the event. He explained that the connection between climate change and human rights, or, more precisely, the impact of one on the other, has been recognized in previous climate agreements, such as those drafted at COP16 in Cancun, Mexico. Amerasinghe advocated for consistency within the Convention in terms of applying social and environmental safeguards. Andrea Rodriguez, an AIDA senior attorney, spoke of the importance of implementing such safeguards, particularly with respect to the Green Climate Fund. The Fund must adopt the strictest standards in the design of their social and environmental safeguards, she said. Only in this way can they ensure that projects financed won’t cause harm to the environment or violate human rights. Rodriguez said that the best international standards must be applied to projects at every phase of development, along with ongoing evaluation to learn from mistakes and to guide the choice of tools that have proved most effective. During its first three years of operation, the Green Climate Fund will use the standards of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), which Rodriguez considers "insufficient for preventing harm." Ba Tiul noted that the challenge is for all United Nations entities to honor differences and respect human rights. Amerasinghe added that projects registered with mechanisms like the CDM should be monitored throughout implementation, not just during the initial consultation and approval phases. And, faced with allegations of human rights abuses, he said, authorities must not hesitate to undertake an investigation. At the conclusion of the event, Sealy thanked the participants for the information provided and promised to do everything possible to strengthen the Clean Development Mechanism consultation process. For more information from COP20 and to post comments, visit our interactive blog at aida-cop.org
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