A 🆕 groundbreaking report by UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Loss & Damage and human rights leaves no doubt: under international human rights law, countries & corporations responsible for the climate crisis must remedy climate-related harms. 🔥
Some important messages 👇
🌍 Remedies should be available & accessible to ALL people for human rights violations from Loss and Damage that occurs inside & beyond boundaries.
⚖ States should be accountable for their contributions to the climate crisis, including the failure to regulate corporate emissions.
🛢 There is a moral rationale & legal basis to hold fossil fuels companies accountable for climate harm & reparations.
📈 Historical emissions source attribution is critical to the overall attribution of responsibilities for climate impacts.
👩⚖️ This issue of climate accountability is of critical importance for the upcoming advisory opinion on climate change by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which will look at the legal consequences for States for causing significant harm to the climate system.
Remedies for climate harm can include the right to reparations, including:
👉 restitution
👉 compensation
👉 rehabilitation
👉 satisfaction
👉 guarantees of non-repetition
& should also be informed by other principles of international law such as:
⚖ Equity
🏭 Polluter pays
🌎 Common but Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR)
⚠ Critically, the UNSG recognizes that the UNFCCC L&D mechanisms are "not currently designed or intended [...] to fulfil the human rights obligations of States to provide effective remedies for climate harms"
➡ MORE is needed to fulfill the right to remedy for climate harm.
The report dives into #HumanRights- & equity-based approaches for climate resilience:
1️⃣ Integrating a human rights- and equity-based approach to loss and damage in climate laws, policies and assessments
2️⃣ Human rights- and equity-based approaches to strengthen climate resilience
3️⃣ Mobilizing finance for loss and damage through a human rights- and equity-based approach
4️⃣ Advancing access to judicial remedy and accountability for loss and damage
5️⃣ Climate justice and transitional justice approaches to loss and damage
Within these chapters, the report dives into important matters such as the need for comprehensive and disaggregated data collection, direct access to funding for frontlines communities, the effective regulation of the private sector, rights-based mobility pathways and remedies for displacement, universal social protection systems, novel sources of finance such as equity-based taxation guided by the polluter pays principle, creating fiscal space through debt restructuring and cancellation, and access to justice.
🔥 In conclusion, with this groundbreaking report, the UN Secretary-General breaks the taboo of climate reparations. Wealthy States should now take responsibility, implement these recommendations & agree to mechanisms to remedy climate harm.
