2018 United Nations Forum on Business and Human Rights

Interpretation is provided into Spanish

Organized by OHCHR

Brief description of the session:
 This session will explore the responsibilities of businesses with respect to climate change, mitigation and adaptation. Businesses must be accountable for their climate impacts, participate responsibly in climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts with full respect for human rights, and exercise human rights due diligence in the course of their activities. States must also ensure that their own business activities, including activities conducted in partnership with the private sector, contribute to mitigating climate change while respecting human rights, and ensuring effective remedies for climate and human rights harms. Businesses and governments should go beyond simply avoiding climate harms and actively work to promote development that benefits both people and planet.

Session objectives:
 Raise awareness of business responsibilities related to human rights and climate change.
 Identify good practices and concrete solutions to human rights challenges faced by businesses in the context of climate change.

Key discussion questions: 
 1. What is the responsibility of the private sector for climate change?
2. What does a rights-based approach to climate action look like for companies? What responsibilities does the private sector have to limit their carbon footprint (e.g. human right due diligence)?  
3. How can companies be held accountable for climate-related human rights harms?

Background to the discussion:
 Climate change is a key challenge facing the global community, and one that impacts, directly and indirectly, an array of internationally guaranteed human rights. Private actors, including businesses, contribute significantly to the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change, and thus contribute to the impacts of climate change on human rights. At the same time, international agreements, including the Addis Ababa Action Agenda for Financing for Development, the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, and the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change recognize that private actors must play a significant role in climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts and in ensuring development that is truly sustainable and in line with the vision elaborated in the United Nations Declaration on the Right to Development.

Today, global attention is increasingly trained on the impact that businesses have on the enjoyment of human rights around the world, and businesses are increasingly aware of human rights as both a risk factor and as a moral and legal imperative. Despite strong understanding of the links between climate change and human rights, climate change and business, and business and human rights, there is a lack of action to ensure business accountability for climate change.