Delivering on the Paris Promises

Advocacy

This report focuses on recommendations for the negotiations of the Paris Rule Book. Notably, on the principles reaffirmed by the Paris Agreement: human rights, rights of indigenous people, public participation, gender equality, food security, just transition and ecosystem integrity. As well as integrating these principles in key aspects of the implementation of the Paris Agreement.

The adoption and the rapid entry into force of the Paris Agreement constituted a significant step towards a global response to the climate crisis. The Paris Agreement establishes the first international framework that commits states to take steps to keep temperature increase below 1.5ºC, under which all states have agreed to take climate action on the basis of equity.

“Climate change-related impacts like droughts, flooding, and land degradation pose an extremely severe threat to the realization of the right to food. It is time to take urgent climate action to help advance, not undermine, the goal of ending hunger and malnutrition. In implementing the Paris Agreement, small-scale food producers, particularly women, must have a seat at the table, and food security must be part of the conversation.”

Tonya Rawe, CARE’s Global Policy Lead for Food and Nutrition Security

Significantly, the Paris Agreement also placed climate action in the context of efforts to achieve sustainable development, stressing the relationship between climate action and poverty eradication. It further reaffirms the need for governments to respect and promote human rights, including the rights of indigenous peoples, gender equality and the empowerment of women, the fundamental priority of safeguarding food security, the importance of public participation and access to information, the imperatives of a just transition and creation of decent work, and the importance of securing ecosystems integrity. The international community has long recognized that climate change poses a considerable threat to the realization of human rights, especially the rights of vulnerable people and local communities, and the rights of indigenous peoples.