Credits: Adil Sattarov, Unplash.com,
By: Sandra Arntz, Sjoerd Bakker, Samuel Ballin, Sophie van Dongen, Seema Murtuza and Martyna Stećko
This post is the second part of a two-part discussion on the impact of the latest Conference of Parties (COP) on climate change policy through the lens of human rights. You can read Part 1 here:
Donald Trump and the enhanced gender action plan
Discussions on the technicalities of the Paris Agreement were also interlaced with concerns of gender equity, justice, and representation. COP29 nonetheless got off to a shaky start for gender equality, with Azerbaijan having to walk back on its initial announcement of an all-male organisational committee. This despite long-running efforts to embed gender equality within climate policy.
The first Lima work programme on gender (LWPG) was established at COP20 in 2014, with the goal “to advance gender balance, promote gender sensitivity […] and achieve gender-responsive climate policy[.]” This was a significant step towards women’s rights and non-discrimination in climate policy. The LWPG was extended at COP22, and again at COP23 with the establishment of the first gender action plan (GAP) in 2017. Less encouragingly, however, this was the same year that US President Donald Trump first took office and announced his intention to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. 2017 was thus a mixed bag (to say the least) for climate policy, women’s rights, and human rights in general. The GAP was followed at COP25 by the enhanced LPWG and GAP, which COP29 has now extended.
The enhanced GAP is organised around five priority areas, which include capacity-building, women’s leadership, and gender-responsive implementation. Two main points of debate which Carbon Brief highlighted during COP29 were whether to extend the GAP for another 5 or 10 years, and whether to include references to the Paris Agreement or only to the UNFCCC itself. It appears that, ultimately, agreement was reached for a 10-year mandate without reference to the Paris Agreement. These may be fitting (and unexpectedly urgent) questions for a year in which Trump has also been re-elected for a second four-year term.
It remains to be seen exactly what the second Trump presidency will mean for human rights and climate policy, but indications from prominent Trump supporters like the Heritage Foundation suggest a renewed anti-climate approach as well as severe restrictions on the human rights of migrants, trans people and other marginalised groups. The GAP itself appears secure for the foreseeable future, but the more general position of gender equality in the climate policy world appears rather more fragile in the current political context. Indeed, with a second Trump presidency the future of the COP and the UNFCCC process as a whole may be significantly under threat.
Indigenous rights and indigenous knowledge
As acknowledged in the Paris Agreement (preamble and Article 7.5), Indigenous Peoples and local communities play a dual role in the climate crisis. On the one hand, they are often disproportionately affected by the negative effects of climate change. The far-reaching and imminent effects of climate change on the human rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities have been recognized by an increasing number of international human rights courts and bodies, including the UN Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. At the same time, they can play a meaningful role in the stewardship of the natural environment and therefore climate action leadership.
The outcome of COP29 could be considered a careful step forward particularly in relation to the participation of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in global climate action. At COP29, the mandate of the Facilitative Working Group (FWG) of the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform (LCIPP) was renewed, and the Baku Workplan was adopted.
The LCIPP was established at COP21 in 2015 (see decision 1/CP.21), recognizing the important role that the knowledge, technologies and practices of Indigenous Peoples and local communities could play in global climate action and mitigation. In 2018, The FWG was created at COP24 to facilitate the implementation of the LCIPP’s functions related to knowledge sharing and capacity building.
The renewal of the FWG’s mandate at COP29 has the potential to advance the participation and leadership of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in the fight against climate change. The Baku Workplan, set to start in 2025, has a triple focus: the promotion of knowledge exchange, increasing engagement capacity, and the incorporation of a diverse range of values and knowledge systems into global climate action. The Workplan incorporates six collective approaches: the gathering of knowledge holders, regional engagement, seventh-generation roundtables, collaboration with UNFCCC bodies, enhancing engagement with Parties, and overall strategic planning.
These developments can give rise to careful optimism regarding the fostering of the participation and leadership of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in global climate action and the international community’s commitment to inclusive and transformational climate action. Perhaps this increased participation could give rise to effective international measures to counter or mitigate the disproportionate effect of climate change on the human rights of Indigenous Peoples and local populations.
Conclusions and next steps
The COP29 closed on the 24th of November with an agreement: the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance (NCQG). This agreement entails a new goal in climate finance: $300 billion annually by 2035 and an effort of all actors to work together to scale up this amount up to $1.3 trillion per year by 2035.
This agreement was met with a lot of critique and rejection. First of all, it is argued that the new goal in climate finance is ‘ridiculously low’. $300 billion is a fraction of the actual climate action needs and is set to be met by 2035. Accounting for inflation this number is said to be not much higher than the previous $100 billion committed. Therefore this low goal will have devasting effects on the possibilities to ensure basic human rights for individuals and communities who are already in vulnerable situations due to the consequences of climate change. Besides the low goal, the agreement also remains vague on where this money will come from, mentioning in paragraph 8(a): ‘a wide variety of sources, public and private, bilateral and multilateral, including alternative sources’. Thus, not providing an actual guarantee for grants-based finance. As a result, critics believe this will push developing countries further into debt when dealing with current and future climate related loss and damages.
Hurt and outraged, the Least Developed Countries Group mentioned that the countries most responsible for the climate crisis failed them. They reaffirm that the COP29 did not result in further concrete plans to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 °C and even led to excluding loss and damage from the climate finance goal, while one of the aims of this COP was to give direction to the Loss and Damage Fund. Critics of the outcome of the COP29 are therefore hopeful that the ICJ in the advisory opinion on States’ legal obligations in respect of climate change will give new impetus to the negotiations on these points. All eyes are now on the ICJ and whether they will give an advisory opinion that will inspire action going forward and set new ground rules for effective and just climate negotiations and cessation in harm, combined with full reparation of harm.
It can therefore be argued that the COP29 was not successful. Which could have been expected considering the 1773 fossil fuel lobbyists allowed to attend. A problem that was already signaled to the UNFCCC Secretariat in an open letter. While awaiting the advisory opinion of the ICJ, we therefore urge States and the UN to reject corporate interference at the COP and protect the civic spaces needed for climate action.
Bio:
Sandra Arntz, PhD candidate at the department of Jurisprudence.
Sjoerd Bakker, PhD candidate at the department of Administrative Law.
Samuel Ballin, PhD candidate at the Centre for Migration Law.
Sophie van Dongen, PhD candidate at the department of Jurisprudence.
Seema Murtuza, PhD candidate at the department of International and European Law.
Martyna Stećko, PhD candidate at the department of International and European Law.