Human rights: a pathway out of the climate crisis

I – The climate crisis is a human rights crisis

In 2015, States adopted the Paris Agreement, agreeing to respect, promote and consider their human rights obligations when taking climate action. In the ten years since, there has been growing recognition that the climate crisis is a human rights crisis – and that human rights offer a pathway out. 

Between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause approximately 250 000 additional deaths per year, from undernutrition, malaria, diarrhoea, and heat stress alone. The number of people at risk of floods is expected to increase by some 400 million to 2.6 billion by 2050. By that same date, three out of four people worldwide could face the impacts of drought, while climate change could put another 80 million people at risk of hunger.  

My Office has played a part in documenting the impact of climate change on the rights to food and health, on women, people with disabilities, older people, children, and migrants. 

We have analysed key themes, including how to deal with the loss and damage already caused by our changing climate, and how to support a just transition to renewable energy. Our work has informed the push for greater ambition in mitigating climate change as a matter of human rights obligation, highlighted the disproportionate impacts of climate change on people in vulnerable situations, and emphasized the rights of those affected to information and to justice and remedy, and to participate in decisions that affect them. 

We have integrated this work in a broader push for environmental justice in the context of multiple planetary crises. The United Nations General Assembly recognized the interdependence of human rights and the environment in 2022, when it passed resolution 76/300, on the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. This landmark resolution noted that “environmental degradation, climate change, biodiversity loss, desertification and unsustainable development constitute some of the most pressing and serious threats to the ability of present and future generations to effectively enjoy all human rights.” 

This right has also been recognized by the United Nations Human Rights Council, and integrated in the Global Framework on Chemicals, the Global Biodiversity Framework, and decisions of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. 

Most recently, the International Court of Justice issued a landmark opinion that unequivocally found that States’ human rights obligations apply and are actionable in the context of climate change. ¹

There have also been important developments at the regional level. In July 2025, an Advisory Opinion from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights found that States need to adopt measures to protect human rights from the impacts of climate change. Similarly, the European Court of Human Rights has found that Member States of the Council of Europe have legal obligations related to climate change.

The number of countries that recognize the right to a healthy environment has grown to 164. This recognition improves protection of the environment and supports those seeking to defend it. ³ A court in Germany recently accepted, in principle, the link between emitters there, and damage caused by melting glaciers in Peru. ⁴  

Many of these judicial rulings, legal pleadings, and multilateral negotiations have cited and drawn on the work of my Office, and the United Nations human rights mechanisms. 

However, these developments have not been matched by ambition and action by the international community.  The Paris Agreement has led to progress; without it, humanity would be headed to over four degrees of heating, and that figure is now three degrees. But there are key challenges to its implementation. For example, its monitoring and compliance framework is inadequate; climate commitments are voluntary and determined by national governments; negotiations lack transparency; and there are limited opportunities for participation by women’s groups, Indigenous Peoples, children and young people, trade unions, and others.

II – We need new approaches to climate action 

A new political approach to address the climate emergency is urgently needed – one that embraces human rights as the compass for a sustainable future. 

I believe this new approach should be grounded in a fundamental reassessment of our relationship with nature, acknowledging the hard scientific evidence that we and our environment are totally interdependent. Our political and economic choices should be guided by facts, rather than seeking to dominate the natural world and make it bend to our will. 

The misconception that nature is a hierarchy, with homo sapiens at its apex, is at the root of the planetary crises wreaking havoc across our world. Every year, we consume some 1.8 times more resources than our planet can regenerate, ⁵ with no apparent regard for the consequences. Meanwhile, the extraction and burning of fossil fuels is trapping humanity in a furnace as climate impacts hit every country – with huge human and economic costs. Our global food systems – which allow massive waste while millions go hungry – are driving an unprecedented loss of biodiversity. One million of the world’s estimated 8 million plant and animal species are threatened with extinction. ⁶ And by 2050, there could be more plastic in the ocean than fish. 

It does not have to be this way. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has found that rights-based approaches lead to more effective and sustainable climate action. ⁷ Ensuring that all policies embrace human rights, and recognizing that those rights are intrinsically linked with the rights of nature, provides a roadmap to a sustainable future.  

How would that future look? The building blocks are already there. 

First, full implementation of the Paris Agreement is a fundamental requirement. But the transition to renewables must go much further, much faster, while respecting all human rights including the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. 

I welcome growing support for a proposed Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty that seeks to end the expansion of new oil, coal and gas projects, and accelerate the transition to renewable energy. Last year, renewables made up over 90 percent of the new power capacity built around the world. Renewable energy has become the cheapest power option ⁸  in most places. The cost of electricity from solar power fell by 85 percent between 2010 and 2020. ⁹ And the signals from almost all G20 economies are clear: they are scaling up the transition to renewables. 

A systemic shift towards sustainable societies has concrete implications across many economic sectors. These changes – from transport, to supply chains, to healthcare, to finance – need to be rapid, coherent, and founded on human rights. My Office has developed the holistic concept of a human rights economy, where all government policies related to the economic sector should have a clear focus on advancing human rights and protecting the planet.

For example, in a human rights economy, States would equitably phase out fossil fuel subsidies and regulate environmentally destructive activities. They would invest in renewable energy sources, sustainable food systems, and social safety nets to help people adapt and adjust. Investors and businesses would transparently disclose and liquidate investments in sectors that are harming our climate and our environment – including fossil fuels. Today’s balance sheets often fail to take account of the hidden expenses associated with climate chaos and environmental degradation. It is time we adopt policies that do.

Second, climate action must be based on equality and justice. It is unacceptable that the countries and people that did the least to cause the climate crisis are paying the highest price. Those responsible must pay up. 

At COP29 in Baku, developed countries agreed to triple climate finance to 300 billion dollars by 2035, and all parties agreed to increase finance to developing countries from public and private sources to at least 1.3 trillion dollars per year by 2035.

Yet, projections estimate over 10 trillion dollars are needed per year between 2030 and 2050. So we need far more ambition and cooperation between governments, multilateral development banks, the private sector and investors, and communities. 

We need to find new, creative sources to fund climate action – from green bond markets to windfall taxes on fossil fuel companies – and a serious reform of the financial architecture. I fully support the proposal by Brazil’s G20 Presidency for a billionaire tax to go towards climate finance and reducing inequality.

Climate finance must be accessible to the people most affected, including women, young people and children, and Indigenous Peoples. 

Climate justice goes beyond financial support; it must also involve addressing historical injustices, fostering healing, and promoting reconciliation. Transitional justice, a framework originally designed to help societies recover from authoritarianism and conflict, can help guide responses to the deep-rooted harms of the climate crisis. This includes truth-telling and uncovering what the fossil fuel industry knew about the harms of its products and contribution to climate change, and when. 

A commission of inquiry made up of scientists, environmental lawyers, Indigenous representatives, and human rights experts could help expose the full extent of environmental damage, identify responsible parties, and shape accountability. Reparation and remedy are crucial, particularly when harm is irreversible. Those affected by climate-related destruction deserve compensation and rehabilitation, and businesses must be held accountable for foreseeable damage they have knowingly caused through their operations. 

Climate justice demands action centred on the needs of people who have been most affected. That includes Indigenous Peoples, women and girls, people with disabilities, local communities, and minorities. The rights of young people and children – and of future generations – must be paramount.

Third, I believe respect for the rights of nature has a part in these approaches. I welcome increasing recognition of aspects of those rights at both national and international levels.

For example, the 2022 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework acknowledges that the rights of nature are vital to its successful implementation. Following the Treaty of Waitangi in New Zealand, certain rivers have been granted legal identity and can be defended in court against environmental damage. 

Ecuador was the first country to recognize the rights of nature in its national constitution. These rights are also recognized at different levels of governance in Bolivia, India, Spain, Uganda, the United States of America, and beyond.

For many Indigenous Peoples, the rights of nature are part of their worldview, practices, and traditional laws. They understand that protecting nature necessarily reinforces human rights – particularly the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment.

I believe governments today need to develop governance models and legal frameworks that integrate different worldviews and perspectives, including those that recognize the rights of nature. I encourage academics and legal scholars to build on current laws, traditions and practices to consider how these models could evolve. This could lead to stronger environmental and human rights laws that recognize legal standing for nature and its defenders; protect against environmental harm; recognize the crime of ecocide, including potentially under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court; and ensure corporations are held to account.  

Conclusion

Around the world, many Governments are failing to meet the urgency of this moment. They are also out of step with their people, who overwhelmingly support strong climate action. Disinformation and division are having a deadly impact, and the existential threat of climate change has too often been de-prioritized. We need to put it right back at the top of the international agenda.

The COP30 Brazilian Presidency has called for a global mobilization, the Mutirão, to build momentum for climate action. People everywhere need to push for change, within their own communities and beyond, because widespread public pressure will help Governments take the necessary action.

Ten years after the adoption of the Paris Agreement, we need governance that is guided by the fundamental values and principles that unite us all, and a global movement for change, founded on human rights and human dignity.

1. Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on Obligations of States in respect of climate change (23 July 2025) available at: https://www.icj-cij.org/case/187/advisory-opinions.
3. [A/HRC/43/53, para. 13 cf. OHCHR, Press Release, Immediate action crucial to ensure right to healthy environment, says UN expert, 18 October 2024/note] A court in South Korea recently found that the country’s climate change law violated the constitutional right of youth petitioners to a healthy environment. ² Do-Hyun Kim et al. v. South Korea (2024)
4. Luciano Lliuya v. RWE AG (2025)
5. https://overshoot.footprintnetwork.org/newsroom/press-release-2025-english/
6. https://www.unep.org/facts-about-nature-crisis
7. Summary for Policymakers in: Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2023) paras C.5.2 and C.5.3
8. https://www.irena.org/-/media/files/irena/agency/publication/2022/mar/irena_weto_summary_2022.pdf?la=en&hash=1da99d3c3334c84668f5caae029bd9a076c10079
9. https://www.irena.org/publications/2021/Jun/Renewable-Power-Costs-in-2020