Beyond Climate Promises: ESCR-Net Members Bring Demands for Justice, Reparations and Accountability to COP31

As governments prepare to gather for the 31st UN Climate Change Conference (COP31) in November 2026, the gap between international climate commitments and the realities of frontline communities remains profound. Corporate influence over climate policymaking, growing repression of human rights defenders, and unresolved questions of climate finance and accountability continue to undermine meaningful climate action.

For communities confronting extraction, displacement, militarization and environmental destruction, the climate crisis is inseparable from the systems of colonialism, patriarchy, debt and corporate power that perpetuate inequality.

While access to climate negotiations remains a privilege, many of the communities most affected by the crisis continue to be excluded from decisions shaping their territories, livelihoods and futures.

Ahead of COP31, ESCR-Net’s members presents Reclaiming Climate Justice: Our Common Agenda for COP31, a collective advocacy agenda organized around six interconnected pillars. Developed through a process of consolidating members’ analysis and priorities, the agenda connects international negotiations with struggles for human rights, self-determination and systemic change.

What’s at Stake at COP31?

COP31 presents a critical opportunity to move from political commitments toward concrete implementation and accountability.

At COP30, governments agreed to develop a Just Transition Mechanism (JTM). However, subsequent negotiations at SB64 failed to reach agreement on its structure, functions or institutional placement. COP31 must now establish a clear mandate, resources and accountability measures to ensure that the mechanism advances equitable transitions shaped by affected communities rather than reproducing existing inequalities.

Climate finance remains another major unresolved issue. ESCR-Net calls for at least USD 1.3 trillion annually in new, additional, predictable, public and grant-based climate finance from the Global North to the Global South, grounded in developed countries’ obligations under Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement. This must be accompanied by debt cancellation, direct community access to financing and an end to approaches that deepen debt dependency.

At the same time, the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinion on States’ obligations concerning climate change provides an important legal foundation for strengthening accountability. Governments must translate these obligations into accessible mechanisms for remedy, reparations and ecological restoration.

Corporate accountability is equally urgent. As negotiations toward a UN legally binding treaty on business and human rights move toward an expected final draft in 2027, States must confront corporate interference in climate governance and strengthen enforceable obligations for corporations responsible for human rights abuses and environmental harm.

Six Pillars for Climate Justice

ESCR-Net’s collective agenda identifies six interconnected priorities for COP31:

1. Center Feminist Justice and Protect Defenders

Guarantee the meaningful participation and safety of frontline communities, women, gender-diverse people and human rights defenders. Protect civic freedoms, embed feminist and intersectional approaches in climate policies, and recognize and redistribute unpaid and underpaid care work.

2. Deliver a Just and Equitable Transition

Operationalize a Just Transition Mechanism grounded in historical responsibility, human rights and peoples’ self-determination. Establish a time-bound fossil fuel phaseout, uphold Free, Prior and Informed Consent, and reject extractive, market-based and debt-creating approaches.

3. Confront Militarism and Demand Accountability

Recognize the connections between militarism, occupation, fossil-fuel dependence and ecological destruction. Require transparent military emissions reporting, hold the military-industrial complex accountable and redirect resources toward reparations and peoples-led solutions.

4. Deliver Climate Reparations and Remedy

Turn international legal obligations into enforceable pathways for climate reparations, including compensation, ecological restoration and guarantees of non-repetition. Ensure affected communities can access justice and hold States accountable for climate-related harm.

5. Reclaim Climate Finance and Debt Justice

Deliver at least USD 1.3 trillion annually in public, grant-based climate finance from the Global North to the Global South. Cancel illegitimate, odious and colonial debt, reject debt-creating finance and guarantee direct access for frontline communities.

6. End Corporate Capture and Impunity

Protect climate negotiations from corporate interference, exclude polluting industries from decision-making spaces and advance a strong UN legally binding treaty on business and human rights to ensure corporate accountability and access to remedy.

Connecting Climate Negotiations with Peoples’ Struggles

These six pillars are not isolated policy demands. They reflect interconnected struggles against the structural drivers of the climate crisis and the concentration of political and economic power.

For ESCR-Net, meaningful climate action requires more than technical solutions or voluntary commitments. It demands transforming the systems that enable environmental destruction, corporate impunity, militarization and economic injustice.

As COP31 approaches, the Network will continue connecting international negotiations with the knowledge, leadership and collective struggles of frontline communities, including those unable to participate directly in the conference.

Climate justice cannot be delivered without the peoples whose lives, territories and futures are at stake.

Download: Six Pillars for Climate Justice

Explore ESCR-Net’s new COP31 Policy Brief: Delivering Justice, Reparations and Accountability, a two-page resource summarizing the six pillars, key challenges and collective demands for COP31.

Designed as an advocacy resource for social movements, human rights defenders, civil society organizations and allies, the brief highlights the actions governments must take to advance climate justice.

For a more detailed analysis of the demands and their political and legal foundations, read the full briefing note Reclaiming Climate Justice: Our Common Agenda for COP31.