The Paris Agreement is definitely not perfect, as I wrote in my last column, but embedded in it is guidance on how to undertake climate actions while ensuring socially and ecologically sustainable outcomes. In a recent article published in the website of the Center for International Forestry Research, I argue this important point with colleagues Rosalind Reece and Purple Romero. I borrow language from that article in this column.
We are all affiliated with the REDD+ Safeguards Working Group, a North-South coalition of more than 40 human rights, environmental and indigenous organizations pushing for the effective implementation of REDD+ safeguards. REDD+ refers to the approach or mechanism in the climate change convention that provided policy incentives for developing countries to implement climate change mitigation programs in their forests. REDD+ programs, projects and activities are subject to human rights, governance and environmental safeguards.
The Paris Agreement introduces a set of principles to guide climate actions in its Preamble. In particular, the Preamble states that countries should, “respect, promote and consider their respective obligations on human rights, the right to health, the rights of indigenous peoples, local communities, migrants, children, persons with disabilities and people in vulnerable situations and the right to development, as well as gender equality, empowerment of women and intergenerational equity.”
The Agreement also recognizes the “importance of the conservation and enhancement, as appropriate, of sinks and reservoirs of the greenhouse gases referred to in the Convention” and notes “the importance of ensuring the integrity of all ecosystems, including oceans, and the protection of biodiversity … when taking action to address climate change.”
Although some are disappointed that references to human rights and ecosystem integrity are not included in the operative text of the Agreement, the language used in the preamble clearly shows the intent to bind governments to implement its provisions.
It was not a walk in the park to get human rights and ecosystems integrity language into the Agreement. Indeed in Paris, the RSWG worked hard to keep the critical provisions in place and saw crucial support from Mexico (which took the lead on human rights, forming a Friends of the Principles group) as well as from the Philippines, Costa Rica, Chile, Brazil, Tuvalu and Indonesia. In the meantime, the Philippines and Turkey took the lead in pushing the language on ecosystem integrity in the Preamble.
We in RSWG campaigned hard for the inclusion of ecosystem integrity, human rights and the rights of indigenous peoples in the operational part of the text. We stressed that 1.5 degrees Celsius would be difficult, if not impossible, to achieve without ecosystem integrity. We reminded negotiators that the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change contains many provisions on ecosystems, including in the Objective (Article 2) and the Commitments (Article 4). We emphasized that inclusion of ecosystem integrity in the Preamble is not enough, and would be a backsliding from the Convention itself.
In the second week of the Paris meeting, COP president Laurent Fabius announced the creation of new informal consultation groups, including one on the Preamble facilitated by Claudia Salerno, Venezuela’s lead climate negotiator. As talks entered their final days, under heavy pressure from the civil society inter-constituency group and the Friends of Principles, countries mustered political will, resulting in what Ambassador Salerno described as “a revolutionary Preamble.”
It provides clear social and ecological framing for all climate actions taken under the Paris Agreement, and represents a powerful set of guiding principles for climate actions that send a strong signal which cannot be ignored. The Agreement also provides for the development of guidelines and procedures over the next five years, opening the door for the adoption of further social and ecological protections when the Agreement enters into force.
The preamble is revolutionary for several reasons. First, human rights, the rights of indigenous peoples and ecosystem integrity were not included in the 1992 Convention or the Kyoto Protocol. Now we have an agreement that affords them a clear role in battling climate change. Further, the new climate deal tasks countries to ensure the integrity of all ecosystems, including oceans, and to protect biodiversity when taking action on climate change. This finds stronger and solid footing in Article 5.1, which states, “Parties should take action to conserve and enhance, as appropriate, sinks and reservoirs of greenhouse gases” (i.e. “biomass, forests and oceans, and other terrestrial, coastal and marine ecosystems”).
When taken together with the Preamble, the Agreement states loud and clear that all countries, both developing and developed, are mandated to conserve and enhance the integrity of ecosystems in a way that also respects human rights and the rights of indigenous peoples and protects biodiversity.
The next step in the negotiations will set the stage for countries to give substance to the Paris Agreement’s references to the protection of human rights, the rights of indigenous peoples and ecosystem integrity.
The coming years will be a test of countries’ will to ensure the ‘revolutionary Preamble’ effects real change. We have the right signal from the Paris Agreement; with global resolve and political will, we can work together to turn this signal into effective climate actions.
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