In an open letter, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, notes that States have legal obligations to prevent and alleviate climate change, urging them to take “effective, ambitious, urgent, human rights-based climate action” at the Katowice Climate Change Conference.
Bachelet warns of the threats to the human rights of millions of people posed by climate change.
22 November 2018: The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, has published an open letter ahead of the Katowice Climate Change Conference in December 2018 in Poland, which states that climate change is already affecting people’s lives, and failure to act will lead to more lives being “irreparably harmed.”
In the letter, Bachelet emphasizes that States have legal obligations to prevent and alleviate climate change, and warns of the threats to the human rights of millions of people posed by climate change. She urges countries attending the Katowice Climate Change Conference to take “effective, ambitious, urgent, human rights-based climate action.”
At 3ºC warming, entire nations, ecosystems, peoples and ways of life could simply cease to exist.
Noting that current nationally determined contributions (NDCs) will result in around 3ºC of warming above preindustrial levels, Bachelet notes that “entire nations, ecosystems, peoples and ways of life could simply cease to exist.” She explains that climate change would have a greater impact on those who already face discrimination due to their gender or economic status, because they are members of indigenous peoples or minorities, migrants or internally displaced or because they have disabilities.
She reminds States of their obligations under international human rights law, including obligations to ensure that those impacted by climate change have access to effective remedies and the required means to adapt, and to strengthen mitigation commitments. [OHCHR Press Release] [Open Letter by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights]