Where are we now and what is at stake in Azerbaijan?
At COP29, ESCER WG members will be continue to focus on centering peoples-led solutions to decolonize climate narratives, expose false solutions rooted in imperialism, corporate capture and impunity. Members argue that this requires a meaningful implementation of the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment which must ensure the realization of the human right of peoples to self determination and intergenerational justice and equity.
Communities must be free to determine and advance peoples-led climate solutions based on care and harmonious coexistence with nature and be able to hold the global polluters accountable for preserving the planet and ensuring well-being of the future generations. This is in line with the principle of intergenerational equity and justice including States obligation of ensuring that the burdens of the climate crisis and other forms of environmental destruction are not shifted to future generations.
Looking into our collective agenda and priorities: What do we want to see out of COP29?
Particularly at COP29, the ESCER WG demands transformational outcomes for the planet to stay well below the global goal of 1.5 degrees celsius. Below are some key demands:
Centering peoples-led solutions to decolonize climate narratives, expose false solutions rooted in corporate capture and realize the human rights to remedy and reparations
As a critical foundation to address the climate crisis, effective participation of grassroots communities is required along with recognition of the human rights to remedy and reparations. This includes ensuring the implementation of the right to self-determination, an overarching principle of international law. Indigenous Peoples, small-scale food producers and other peoples, including those in situations of occupation and settler-colonialism and apartheid such as in the case of the Palestinian people, have a fundamental right to shape responses to present and future climate change impacts and prioritize their collective rights and well-being, as part of their right to self-determination. This includes asserting and reclaiming the right to advance peoples-led climate solutions based on care, the sustainability of life and a harmonious coexistence with nature.
Peoples-led solutions and their powerful stories must be at the center to expose and counter how imperialism in the form of climate colonialism is inherently serving patriarchy and neoliberalism to influence global climate policies. These extractivist and exploitative models create grounds for corporate capture which violate human rights and exacerbate the climate crisis.
Countries must stop the continuous commodification of peoples, lands, oceans, and natural resources. Members of the Environment and ESCR Working Group have identified a number of corporate-led so-called climate solutions such as Net Zero, Nature-Based Solutions, carbon credits, Carbon Capture and Storage, seabed mining, and other false solutions labeled as ‘climate actions’ but in reality rooted in corporate capture and greenwashing, perpetuating climate injustices and do not address the root causes of the climate catastrophe. This has weakened the ability of communities to cope with climate change impacts and has been furthering land and resource grabbing, including the establishment of environmentally harmful projects and the privatization of natural resources.
In addition to the domination of fossil fuel industry within climate negotiation spaces, whether in relation to mitigation, adaptation or loss and damage, transnational corporations play an outsized role in causing and profiting from the climate crisis, and consequent human rights harm. The capture of democratic decision-making and climate negotiations spaces by corporate actors also reaffirms the critical need for States to effectively regulate businesses, domestically and extraterritorially in line with their human rights obligations to realize just and equitable transition to address climate emergencies rooted in social and gender injustices.
Ensuring climate financing that fits for purpose and is accountable to the peoples
Climate debt of the Global North countries must be paid to the Global South countries based on the principles of Polluters pay and Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities (CBDR-RC). They provide a clear standard on how global polluters must contribute significantly to the climate finance flow. Those affected by climate damage need to have access to effective recourse mechanisms and remedies.
The definition of climate finance continues to be a contentious topic in climate negotiations with the Global North countries consistently pushing for a broader definition covering various types of funding -often with unclear time frames- including private sector investments, loans and blended finance, development assistance, and market-based driven mechanisms. From a human rights and climate justice perspective, climate finance should aim to address historical inequalities, and ensure justice and accountability to frontline communities who bear the brunt of the worsening climate crisis. Members of the Environment and ESCR Working Group are consistent with their call for a just and equitable climate finance that is gender transformative, predictable, accessible by frontline communities, and grounded in human rights. It is a moral and legal obligation of the Global North countries and the finance flow must be from public sources in the form of grants, needs-based, as well as new and additional to the existing financing mechanisms and commitments.
End to militarism and immediate divestment from the arms industry
The significant increase of military expenditures, conflicts and illegal occupations across the world over the years is exacerbating the impacts of climate crises, with very few avenues to seek redress through remedy and reparations. As a means to guarantee human rights and climate justice, there is a need to regulate the arms industry along with an immediate divestment of public and private finances from this harmful sector. Investments should be re-directed towards real, peoples-led climate solutions in order to address the climate crisis.
The Global North driven military operations and arm industries worldwide are heavily dependent on fossil fuels and it plays a central role in driving and sustaining militarism and conflict. In a pathway to phase out fossil fuels and recover from the climate crisis, members of the ESCR-Net are also calling for an end to militarism, conflicts and illegal occupations. The interconnectedness of militarism and the fossil fuel industry perpetuates a cycle of ecological harm, human rights violations and worsening the climate crisis. Military activities contribute to 5.5% of the global emissions, yet unaccounted for in climate negotiations. The disparity of military spending and climate finance is striking as wealthy countries spend 30 times more on militaries than climate finance. This figure reveals that Global North countries have ample financial resources, yet they choose to intensify planetary destruction to accumulate wealth and maintain their economic and political dominance rather than fulfilling their obligations to pay for historical climate debt.
Stronger monitoring mechanisms to ensure transparency and accountability
The establishment and strengthening of existing monitoring mechanisms on the impacts of climate finance projects on the ground is critical to ensure transparency and accountability. To enhance this, effective safeguards and redress mechanisms in line with international human rights standards and instruments, as well as the Paris Agreement, must be in place to prevent human rights violations and enable access to justice. This includes providing timely and adequate information related to any climate project activities that may affect human rights of individuals and communities in a form accessible and culturally appropriate to the respective groups.
New Collective Quantified Goal on climate finance (NCQG)
Final negotiations on the NCQG are expected to take place during COP29, aiming to replace the USD 100 billion pledged at COP15 in Copenhagen more than a decade ago. To this day, debates around NCQG remain on what should be the overall ambitions (quantum), amount (quantity) required, the time frame and process for revisiting the goal, who should pay and what should the transparency mechanism look like. Members strongly argue that NCQG must significantly raise the bar of annual climate finance commitment from billions to trillions of US dollars at the very least by 2030 for the Global South countries as a floor to address devastating impacts of the climate crisis. It has also been projected that 266 trillions USD of climate finance is needed for the next 25 years.
Equally important, this funding should come from the Global North countries. It is indeed absurd that the rich countries continue to push for measures that push Global South countries -most of whom are already deeply indebted- to draw from their domestic resources to pay for a crisis they are not historically responsible for. Also, there must be separate lines of funding between ‘development aid’ (ODA) and financing for climate. The rich countries should fund both sectors instead of conflating the issues and pulling finances from one sector to another resulting in double and triple counting.
Financing for loss and damage
The rapidly increasing influence of the International Financial Institutions in the global climate financing landscape and decision making processes is of grave concern. There is an urgent need to reform the global climate financing architecture. Along with broader demands for debt cancellation and deep reforms of the debt infrastructure, members continue to push for climate finance flowing from the rich and industrialized countries to the Global South countries as a grant instead of loans.
Under international human rights law, wealthy industrialized countries must provide new, additional, needs-based, rights-compliant, predictable, grant-based and sustainable public finance for loss and damage, at the scale required, in light of the legal duties of international cooperation. The Special Rapporteur on the Right to Development pointed out that “Remediation in the context of climate change should be interpreted in the sense of full reparation, comprising restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition”. In its operationalisation, the fund for loss and damage must prevent the creation of new debts adding to the burden of the Global South countries vulnerable to the impact of loss and damage.
As showcased at the COP28 in Dubai, rich countries have failed, time and again, to fulfill their responsibility and do the bare minimum. Not only they failed to express their political commitment to pay for the devastating impacts of the loss and damage: the pledges stay pledges while more lives and livelihoods are washed away in the face of the loss and damage impacts in many Global South countries. As members of the ESCER WG continue to push for much more ambitious funding commitments, they also call on states to turn existing pledges into real finance flow for the Global South countries.
Addressing loss and damage requires adequate access to information, and meaningful and effective participation of the frontline communities facing its impacts. For instance, strengthening collective rights such as the Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) of Indigenous Peoples, as well as rights to ownership and tenure of land, including coastal land, territory and resources, would reduce vulnerability in the context of loss and damage. Members strongly argue that there must be a mechanism to enable meaningful participation of the frontline communities particularly in decision-making processes related to modalities, disbursement, implementation, and monitoring of the Fund for loss and damage. It is equally critical to ensure mobilization of funds and direct access of communities through a small-grant window.
Realizing a Just and equitable transition grounded in human rights
The ESCER WG continues to call for an immediate, equitable fossil fuel phase out alongside demand reductions to curb overproduction and consumption driven by oligarchs and neoliberal models that fuel extractivism and resource exploitation for corporate profit.
It is essential for the ongoing negotiations on the Just Transition Work Program to address the impacts of critical mineral extraction, processing, and production on human rights including communities rights particularly in relation to their rights to land, territories, and resources. Human rights and gender equity must be upheld across all critical mineral industries and throughout the value chain from mineral extraction, refining, manufacturing, use, and disposal. This requires establishing robust mechanisms for systematic community-led data collection and disaggregation with indicators determined by respective groups. This approach will contribute significantly to ensure a transition that is just, inclusive and equitable, responding to the needs and priorities of the communities.
Most importantly, strong community-led data mechanisms help ensure data justice by providing firsthand information from the affected groups instead of the data solely controlled by corporations or governments which often omit and deny the real impacts on the ground. Community-led data is a promising and powerful tool to ensure transparency and hold polluters accountable for their actions. It enables communities to expose the real impacts of critical mineral extraction, demand remediation, and establish stronger safeguards to ensure the protection and fulfillment of human rights in the process of transitioning away from fossil-fuel based economy.
Knowledge, practices, and innovations of Indigenous Peoples, peasants, small-scale fishers, pastoralists, and other rural people must be recognized and their right to effective, meaningful and informed participation guaranteed throughout the transition process. This requires comprehensive public policies and programs to ensure food sovereignty of the communities including the respect and protection of their tenure rights, including collective and customary tenure systems, as well as to ensure the restitution and redistribution of land, forests and aquatic resources to those communities who respect and nourish them.
Just transition debates need to address the high concentration of land in the hands of corporations and finance firms. The IPCC has in a special report on land recognized the importance of land tenure security for rural communities in the climate debate. Just transition requires a transition to agroecology, and states must adopt transition plans that include gender-transformative support mechanisms for Indigenous Peoples, small-scale food producers and other people living in rural areas to achieve their in line with the international human rights standards and instruments.
Global just transition discourse must also include strategies for countries to transition from extractivism, including through strategic investments in the care economies. This must be built and centered around the transformation of the current exploitative and neoliberal economic system including through recognition of undervalued and underpaid care work including the critical role of women in caring for the environment while disproportionately affected by climate change impacts. The ongoing negotiations should also emphasize the implementation of safeguards and the allocation of resources for the protection of women, Indigenous Peoples, and environmental human rights defenders.
Financing truly just transitions requires systemic transformation of the international financial architecture, trade, investment, and taxation systems, and canceling illegitimate debts. In ensuring the realization of just and equitable transition, it is important to reaffirm the objectives of climate policy and actions that are essential to ensure the respect, protection and realization of economic, social and cultural rights, such as the rights to social protection, health, education, water and sanitation, particularly for women and young girls who carry disproportionate burden of unpaid care work. In this sense, a just transition grounded on gender justice should recognize and address specific impacts of the climate crisis experienced by women in all their diversities, including by promoting and strengthening care systems that re-distribute the burden of care and protecting the rights of care workers and caregivers.
Furthermore, a just transition must foster regulations to adopt an approach that reduces consumption and production patterns to ensure the systemic and long-term sustainability of social and economic systems. It is clear that the world cannot realize economic, social and cultural rights in a collapsing planet and vice versa, the protection of the environment will not advance at the urgent pace necessary if it doesn’t address the systemic barriers such as land, sea, and resource grabbing, corporate capture, patriarchal and authoritarian governance and provide opportunities to combat social and economic oppression.
Ensuring the protection of environmental human rights defenders
Environmental, land and human rights defenders, particularly those opposing the production and use of fossil fuels, continue to be increasingly targeted and killed for their work. With the urgency to address the climate crisis including the impacts of loss and damage, it is vital for states to take all necessary measures to protect environmental human rights defenders.
There is an urgent need to strengthen laws and policies to protect environmental human rights defenders and ensure their implementation, in line with international human rights obligations. Across the globe, authoritarian governments, military forces and private actors are complicit in targeting human rights defenders with impunity. Failure of States to protect environmental human rights defenders is a failure to protect the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, as it cannot be realized when guardians and defenders of the environment are progressively weakened and silenced.
In an open letter to the UNFCCC Secretariat, a global coalition of civil society organizations, called on the institution to put a stop in hosting COP in authoritarian, petrostate countries such as Egypt (COP27), United Arab Emirates (COP28) and Azerbaijan (COP29). Beyond the call to stop hosting COP in petrostate countries, members also argued that any country chosen to host the annual climate summit must guarantee the full protection of human rights. This includes safeguarding the freedom of speech, assembly and ensuring no reprisals against environmental human rights defenders. Without a full commitment to uphold and protect human rights, meaningful climate action is compromised and critical voices to bring about transformative changes are put at risk.
Civil society and environmental groups continue work across climate justice movements to expose and call for the Azerbaijani government to advance human rights protection particularly in the context of COP29. The COP29 host country agreement between Ilham Aliyev’s regime and the UNFCCC leaked earlier in October received heavy criticism from numerous rights groups for lack of human rights protections. The ESCER WG echoes calls to ensure that the COP host country agreement must fully guarantee the respect, protection and fulfillment of human rights. Most importantly, the document should be publicly accessible well in advance of the COP, in line with UNFCCC decisions, in order to ensure the protection of environmental human rights defenders inside and outside of the Conference.
The Environment and ESCR Working Group also reaffirms its call for immediate and unconditional release of those arbitrarily detained including journalists and human rights defenders including the nearly 300 political prisoners identified in the European Parliament resolution, currently behind bars in Azerbaijan.
