The latest climate change resolution of the current 53rd session of the Human Rights Council (HRC) focuses on loss and damage, among other human rights values at stake. The Human Rights Council adopts a resolution on climate change every year during its June session. The final version of A/HRC/53/6 is not yet available, but the final draft can be accessed here.

Twenty states sponsored the resolution, including eight members of the HRC. The Council adopted resolution A/HRC/53/6 by acclamation (without a vote).

This resolution marks the first time that a HRC resolution focuses on loss and damage. In this resolution, the Council recognizes how loss and damage impacts human rights, and explicitly makes the link with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and the process to operationalize the funding arrangements, including the Loss & Damage Fund (LDF). The resolution’s preamble acknowledges that:

responses to climate change should be coordinated with social and economic development in an integrated manner with a view to avoiding an adverse impact on the latter, taking into full account the legitimate priority needs of developing countries to achieve sustained economic growth, eradicate poverty, end hunger and malnutrition, and achieve livelihood resilience in the face of loss and damage brought about by extreme weather and slow-onset events;

Paragraph 5 reads:

Recognizes the importance for all countries of averting, minimizing and addressing loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change, including extreme weather events and slow-onset events, and the role of sustainable development in reducing the risk of loss and damage, and in that regard looks forward to the further operationalization of the Santiago Network for averting, minimizing and addressing loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change, and encourages the Parties to constructively engage in the Glasgow Dialogue and to support the work of the Transitional Committee to operationalize expeditiously the new funding arrangements, including a fund for assisting developing countries, including those that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change, in responding to loss and damage associated with the adverse impacts of climate change, in the context of relevant decisions of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement;

Despite its references to sustainable development, the HRC resolution urges states to pursue policies that enhance the adaptive capacities and “resilience of communities.” The term and concept of ‘resilience,’ when applied to people, puts the onus on affected populations to recover to achieve the living conditions prior to a shock, rather than the promise of sustainable development or the “progressive realization of rights” and “continuous improvement of living conditions” to which states are obliged to ensure under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (paras. 2.1 and 11, respectively).

The resolution recognizes the link between the adverse impacts of climate change, including on livelihoods, and displacement and migration, and the need for adaptation measures that benefit the most vulnerable, facilitate safe and voluntary movement, minimize forced movement, and address human rights protection gaps.

The HRC also expressed concern at the inadequate social protection schemes for workers in the informal economy and low coverage and penetration of crop insurance schemes in vulnerable farming populations, which would provide income security in the event of contingency. With this resolution, the Council also recognized that women and girls are disproportionately affected by the effects of climate change, and stressed“the importance of the participation of women, including older women, Indigenous women and girls, in the context of climate change, environmental and disaster risk reduction policy and decision-making processes.”

It also requests the UN Secretary-General to conduct an analytical study on `the impact of loss and damage from the adverse effects of climate change on the full enjoyment of human rights, exploring equity-based approaches and solutions to addressing the same`. The report is to be presented at the 57th session of the HRC (September 2024).

Download A/HRC/53/6 on HLRN.

Photo: A few palm trees remain standing amid the destruction caused by Typhoon Haiyan in the city of Tacloban, Philippines. Source: Henry Donati/Department for International Development.