Over 200 organizations call on UNFCCC Secretariat & State parties to centre human rights in climate action at COP27
Human rights and climate action are increasingly indivisible and the need to transition to cleaner energies has never been more urgent. Yet this transition will be set up to fail if it focuses solely on being fast, and not on also being just. We represent a wide range of movements and organizations, working for climate justice, human rights, labour rights, and corporate accountability... The profit-driven extractive model which has underpinned the global energy model has not provided the economic benefits or development promised to many countries and has entrenched existing inequalities, including around access to and ownership of energy, and gender inequality. It must be transformed. COP27 offers a defining moment... Disregarding the rights of local communities and Indigenous populations in the race to a decarbonized economy by 2050, in particular those impacted by the boom in the extraction of the minerals needed for the transition, and by land-intensive renewable energy projects, is short-sighted... It will... continue to fuel opposition, conflict, and result in delays to both projects and achieving our global climate and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) targets. Such conflict has already resulted in at least 369 attacks on... defenders around the world since 2015... It is time to rethink how the energy transition can be used to advance our human rights agenda...