COP29 Press Conference Highlights: Loss and Damage as a Human Rights Obligation

Climate change impacts have highlighted deep inequities in global responsibilities and resources. Advocates assert that the Global North, as the historical driver of emissions, has both a moral and legal obligation to compensate the Global South for the disproportionate losses it suffers due to climate impacts. Moving forward, this requires systemic shifts in financial mechanisms, global governance, and climate action centered on human rights.

Speakers emphasized that countries with the highest historical emissions are obligated to support reparations for impacted communities.

Climate change threatens basic human rights—health, food, water, and a healthy environment—and hits marginalized communities hardest.

Current mechanisms, including the Loss and Damage Fund, are inadequate and often structured as loans rather than grants, deepening debt burdens on already-vulnerable nations.

The press conference highlighted the North’s “ecological debt” to the South, pointing to centuries of carbon-intensive growth that now creates obligations for redress.

International law supports the right to remedy, including compensation and rehabilitation for harms caused by climate change.