Human Rights and Climate Change

Climate change is the greatest threat to human rights in the 21st century.

The Diplomacy Training Program (DTP) acknowledges climate change and global warming as a human rights crisis – an existential threat that impacts most harshly on the most vulnerable and marginalised, on those who have done least to cause it.

DTP is committed to developing the capacity of civil society to advocate for human rights, and the rights of Indigenous Peoples, to be integral to climate change responses – to approaches to adaptation, mitigation, loss and damage, and climate financing. DTP’s eNewsletter and this webpage will provide links to further information and resources useful for advocates. It will be regularly updated. Please send in useful suggestions.

Links and Resources

A climate justice framework designed by Prof. Surya Deva (Special Rapporteur on the right to development) comprising 4 pillars (Mitigation, Adaptation, Remediation, Transformation) and 12 overarching human rights principles to guide climate actions.
A speech by the UN Secretary-General at the American Museum of Natural History on World Environment Day. He discusses the state of the climate and the urgent steps that need to be taken to salvage humanity’s chances of a liveable future.
A report from the Mary Robinson Foundation that outlines that the failure to integrate human rights into climate action can undermine people’s rights, efforts to address this and what further action needs to be taken to integrate human rights in climate action.
A paper from César Rodríguez-Garavito that argues that there are significant challenges with this type of activism. The article provides a comprehensive list of climate change and human rights litigation, models of which could be useful for future action.