MORNING - Human Rights Council Holds Panel Discussion on the Future of the Right to Work in Connection with Climate Change Actions

The Human Rights Council this morning held a panel discussion on the future of the right to work in connection with climate change actions, responses, and impacts in the context of sustainable and inclusive economies.

Nada Al-Nashif, Acting United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the COVID-19 pandemic had had a profound impact on people’s health, lives and the enjoyment of fundamental human rights, including the right to decent work.

States’ measures to protect the environment and the climate would create new jobs in clean and renewable energy, such as wind and solar energy production, while eliminating others, for example those in the coal, gas and oil industries. It was essential that developed countries and the international donor community, guided by the principle of international cooperation, provided financial and technical support to low-income countries’ actions towards green, sustainable and inclusive economies.

Ahmed Ihab Abdelahad Gamaleldin, Permanent Representative of Egypt to the United Nations Office at Geneva, said the right to work was not only essential for human rights, but was also an inseparable and inherent part of human dignity and social justice, and essential to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda with its three dimensions, which were interrelated, of equal importance, and must be addressed together at the same time. A just transition involved maximising the social and economic opportunities of climate action, while minimising and carefully managing any challenges.

Vic Van Vuuren, Acting Deputy Director-General for Policy and Director Enterprises Department, International Labour Organization, said this discussion was taking place at a time when the implications of the climate crisis were being acutely felt across all parts of the world. Ranging from catastrophic flooding to record-breaking heatwaves and droughts, the climate crisis was already having profoundly disruptive impacts on people and their livelihoods. The right to work was a human right. It was not action against climate change, but rather inaction that would destroy jobs and livelihoods at scale.

Ian Fry, Special Rapporteur for the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change, said many developing countries, particularly least developed countries, lacked the necessary technology to transition to a renewable energy economy and provide the necessary safety nets for workers who could be compelled to move out of the fossil fuel industry. The impacts of climate change on these workers were not of their own making. The major greenhouse gas producing countries were responsible. It was time that the polluters paid for the loss and damage they were causing to developing countries.

Mahmoud Mohieldin, United Nations Special Envoy on Financing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and Climate Change High-Level Champion for COP27, said that the phasing-in of low emission technologies and phasing-out of high emission ones needed to meet the rights and needs of all those impacted by transition, including their right to work. Peoples’ jobs and well-being should be at the centre of the transition, ensuring all work forces found a secure pathway in this redeployment.

Sharan Burrow, General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, said the world was facing a convergence of crises. The climate emergency required financing for developing countries, which did not create the emergency, but had been suffering from the impacts. Working people were suffering everywhere, and major reforms to the economy were needed. There also needed to be a major reform to the way society thought about building a sustainable future.

In the ensuing debate, some speakers welcomed the discussion which was pertinent in the context of the climate crisis, conflict, and cost of living crisis. Climate change presented an existential threat, further exacerbated in the context of vulnerable countries. The Sustainable Development Goals stated that conditions needed to be made, to allow people to have quality jobs, without harming the environment. Speakers said that the right to work and climate change were inextricably interconnected, and the right to work was an essential human right. Global warming would lead to exacerbating poverty and an increase in job insecurity. Combatting climate change and environmental degradation contributed to ensuring a healthier world where everyone could work safely and with dignity. Special emphasis needed to be placed on promoting decent work for those most affected by climate change.

Speaking in the interactive discussion were Trinidad and Tobago on behalf of the Caribbean Community Member States represented in Geneva, European Union, Lithuania on behalf of the Nordic-Baltic countries, Saudi Arabia on behalf of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Viet Nam on behalf of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Timor-Leste on behalf of a group of small island developing States, Iraq, Samoa, Senegal, Maldives, Costa Rica, Portugal on behalf of the Portuguese-Speaking Countries, Libya, Nepal, United Arab Emirates, Viet Nam, Niger, Poland, Marshall Islands, Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Bhutan, Mauritania, Sierra Leone, and France.

Also speaking were Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Ordem dos Advogados do Brasil Conselho Federal, Centre Europe - tiers monde, FIAN International e.V., Earthjustice, and Make Mothers Matter.

The webcast of the Human Rights Council meetings can be found here. All meeting summaries can be found here. Documents and reports related to the Human Rights Council’s fifty-first regular session can be found here.

The Council will next continue its general debate under agenda item four on human rights situations that require the Council’s attention.

Panel Discussion on the Future of the Right to Work in Connection with Climate Change Actions, Responses and Impacts in the Context of Sustainable and Inclusive Economies

Key-note Speakers

NADA AL-NASHIF, United Nations Acting High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the COVID-19 pandemic had had a profound impact on people’s health, lives and the enjoyment of fundamental human rights, including the right to decent work. Due to the pandemic, more than 350 million jobs had been lost. World hunger was rising again with approximately 820 million people suffering from hunger and 2 billion being food insecure. Access to health care, work, education, housing and other essential services, already inadequate prior to the pandemic, had been seriously compromised. The ongoing climate crisis, an existential threat for all, compounded by the unprecedented recession caused by the pandemic, called for urgent action to transition towards green, sustainable and inclusive economies that would transform the world of work.

States’ measures to protect the environment and the climate would create new jobs in clean and renewable energy, such as wind and solar energy production, while eliminating others, for example those in the coal, gas and oil industries. Women played a critical role in the economy. Their contributions were often either not recognised or ignored, with the global gender pay gap estimated to be around 23 per cent. Guaranteeing women’s rights and ensuring their meaningful participation was therefore key to sustainable transitions and a just future of work. States should use the recovery from COVID-19 as an opportunity to build back better, to combat climate change, and to protect workers and communities through policies and measures anchored in human rights.

It was concerning that the current energy crisis had led a number of countries to intensify the exploitation of fossil fuels, rather than accelerate the implementation of renewable energies, alongside insistence on greater energy efficiencies across economies and societies. It was essential that developed countries and the international donor community, guided by the principle of international cooperation, provided financial and technical support to low-income countries’ actions towards green, sustainable and inclusive economies, and States should share challenges, experiences and promising practices in strengthening the protection of the right to work in the transition towards a green economy.

AHMED IHAB ABDELAHAD GAMALELDIN, Permanent Representative of Egypt to the United Nations Office at Geneva, said the right to work was not only essential for human rights, but was also an inseparable and inherent part of human dignity and social justice, and essential to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda with its three dimensions, which were interrelated, of equal importance, and must be addressed together at the same time. In the meantime, climate change posed an existential threat for all and was the challenge of the times, and the international community was called upon to meet this challenge collectively, effectively, and rapidly. In the midst of this global crisis, workers and communities affected by climate change should be covered by social protection, by broader investments aimed at creating economic opportunities, as well as appropriate training and assistance for job seekers, for ensuring a just transition.

A just transition involved maximising the social and economic opportunities of climate action, while minimising and carefully managing any challenges. A just transition needed to be prioritised by countries and businesses around the globe right away, as a matter of urgency. The international community was in a race to save the planet. As it moved forward towards COP27, it should ensure that the next COP was an avenue to accomplish the crucially needed progress. The world needed to go from pledges to implementation, and to ensure that all pledges made their way on the ground in countries that needed them the most. All parties should demonstrate the necessary political will to fortify resilience building, adaptation action and social protection programmes and assist the people in the most vulnerable situations and frontline communities.

Statements by the Panellists

VIC VAN VUUREN, Acting Deputy Director-General for Policy and Director Enterprises Department, International Labour Organization, said this discussion was taking place at a time when the implications of the climate crisis were being acutely felt across all parts of the world. Ranging from catastrophic flooding to record-breaking heatwaves and droughts, the climate crisis was already having profoundly disruptive impacts on people and their livelihoods. It was endangering the enjoyment of a host of rights, with particularly severe implications for the right to work. The right to work was a human right and was central to the existence of every individual human being as well as to the cohesion of societies and the functioning of economies. Climate change had a wide range of impacts on the world of work and the right to work itself and emerged as one of the greatest threats to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. However, the job losses caused by the impacts of climate change far exceeded those linked to ecological transition policies; in fact, those transition policies came with huge job creation opportunities.

It was not action against climate change, but rather inaction that would destroy jobs and livelihoods at scale. However, the scale and difficulty of the structural transformations required should not be underestimated. Moreover, a transition to a green economy did not automatically result in inclusive and equitable outcomes, and sometimes risked exacerbating existing inequalities, particularly for women, persons with disabilities, indigenous and tribal peoples, or migrant workers. Protecting the right to work in connection to climate change required addressing the employment and social dimensions of climate change and related actions. The climate crisis was showing to all yet again that the international community’s response, as countries, as businesses, as trade unions, or as civil society, would fail without adequate levels of cooperation, solidarity and consensus-building. As emphasised by the United Nations Secretary-General, what was urgently needed was a renewed social contract, which must be anchored in human rights and advance social justice.

IAN FRY, Special Rapporteur for the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change, said the issue of the right to work in connection to climate change was complex. For many people, the impacts of climate change forced them out of their existing work. Climate change related droughts, floods and severe storms were forcing people from their land and their traditional work practices. Despite these enormous challenges, some civil society organizations were trying to assist communities affected by climate change rebuild their lives and find necessary alternative employment opportunities that put them at less risk. For developing countries, little attention had been given to finding effective just transition policies. Developing countries were faced with the dual challenge of providing energy justice for their population and at the same time finding self-sufficiency and renewable energy options to meet their Paris Agreement obligations. Many developing countries, particularly least developed countries, lacked the necessary technology to transition to a renewable energy economy and provide the necessary safety nets for workers who could be compelled to move out of the fossil fuel industry.

Climate change was having an enormous impact on the economies of many developing countries, which in turn affected the opportunities of millions of people to the right to work. The impacts of climate change on these workers were not of their own making. The major greenhouse gas producing countries were responsible. It was time that the polluters paid for the loss and damage they were causing to developing countries. Too many people were placed in destitute situations and denied their basic human rights because of the impacts of climate change. They were not provided the necessary safety nets to support their future. The international community, particularly the major greenhouse gas emitting economies, should realise their responsibility and support those least able to find alternative work opportunities due to the impacts of the major polluters.

MAHMOUD MOHIELDIN, United Nations Special Envoy on Financing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and Climate Change High-Level Champion for COP27, said it was not realistic to have climate action without considering the Sustainable Development Goals. The phasing-in of low emission technologies and phasing-out of high emission ones needed to meet the rights and needs of all those impacted by such transition, including their right to work. Peoples’ jobs and well-being should be at the centre of the transition, ensuring all work forces found a secure pathway in this redeployment. The COP27 Presidency had launched a series of five regional forums on “Climate Initiatives to Finance Climate Action and the Sustainable Development Goals”, with the aim of scaling up investment and finance to deliver on climate ambition and development goals. Four forums had already taken place in United Nations headquarters in Bangkok, Santiago, Beirut, and Addis Ababa, with more than 70 projects ready to be financed. These climate projects would be a manifestation that transition to low-carbon economies could create more jobs.

Mr. Mohieldin said that climate projects would also be implemented at the local level to address the challenges of poverty and unemployment. The Government of Egypt had launched a national initiative aimed at developing a governorate-level map of green and smart projects that presented innovative climate solutions at the local level. This competition would be run every year, to increase awareness. It was important for the COP in Egypt to build trust, and ensure there were adequate areas relating to climate action and sustainable development. Both the regional and local initiatives indicated that there were promising prospects that adaptation to climate change offered opportunities to create new jobs.

SHARAN BURROW, General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, said the world was facing a convergence of crises. There was a crisis of inequality growing exponentially every day. The last four decades had seen the rise of hyper globalisation which had made the world a much wealthier place, but for working people, labour income share had gone down since the 1980s, while profits and productivity were up, particularly for wealthy multinationals. The climate emergency required financing for developing countries, which did not create the emergency, but had been suffering from the impacts. Working people were suffering everywhere, and major reforms to the economy were needed. There also needed to be a major reform to the way society thought about building a sustainable future.

The pandemic had exposed the fault lines; the essential workers who had helped the world isolate safety, were low paid with little health and safety protection, while nine new pharmaceutical billionaires came out of the crisis due to the development of vaccines. There was also the impact of the inflationary spikes in food and in energy; working people could not afford the price spikes. In addition to the factors emerging from the invasion of Russia into Ukraine, there were 68 conflicts around the world and conflict was escalating. In the face of these crises, how would workplaces be made employment proof and climate proof at national and international levels? It was essential that investment was driven into areas where jobs could be created: renewable energy. For every 10 jobs in renewable energy, there were 5 to 10 in manufacturing, this was how security was built. If the world did not invest in jobs, or put the world on the future of human rights, labour rights and environmental standards as a base for development, then these crises would not be dealt with, and human existence would continue to be threatened in the future.

Discussion

In the ensuing debate, speakers welcomed the discussion which was pertinent in the context of the climate crisis, conflict, and cost of living crisis. Some speakers applauded the insightful contributions of the panellists and the important work being done in light of the challenges being discussed. Climate change presented an existential threat, further exacerbated in the context of vulnerable countries. The Sustainable Development Goals stated that conditions needed to be set up, to allow people to have quality jobs, without harming the environment. There was a delicate balance to be struck between meaningful climate action and continuing commitment to human and social development. The adverse impact of climate change on the full and effective enjoyment of human rights, including on the enjoyment of the right to work, disproportionately affected women and girls, youth and older persons, indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities, those living in conflict areas, and those in the most vulnerable situations.

Some speakers said that the right to work and climate change were inextricably interconnected, and the right to work was an essential human right. Global warming would lead to exacerbating poverty and an increase in job insecurity. It was crucial to step up efforts to protect workers. Rising temperatures and heat waves threatened the workplace safety of outdoor, and even indoor workers, and workers in agriculture and forestry were highly exposed to the impact of rising global temperatures. Changing rainfall patterns and extreme weather events disrupted farming cycles and affected the income of farmers and their families. The West African region would lose almost 55,000 jobs, as a result of climate change.

Combatting climate change and environmental degradation contributed to ensuring a healthier world where everyone could work safely and with dignity. Special emphasis needed to be placed on promoting decent work, for those most affected by climate change. Some speakers said that it was vital to consider new and creative ways to limit job loss associated with climate action. More than ever, the climate emergency was calling for action for jobs, as the Paris Agreement highlighted a just transition and decent work as essential elements for combatting climate change. Decent work also needed to be ensured for women, to ensure they were not left out of the economic model. If gender inequality was not addressed adequately, women and girls risked exacerbated working conditions

There was value to be derived from experience-sharing, and from support that facilitated the shift toward productive economic activities and job creation that aligned more closely with sustainable development and climate resilience. It was essential to mainstream climate change throughout human rights when it came to development, and to protect human rights in the context of climate change. Countries were taking measures to address the uneven impact of the pandemic on disadvantaged sectors of society, including through the mainstreaming of gender equality, environmental sustainability and transition to renewable energy and energy efficiencies. Some speakers said the international community needed to provide technical assistance to small States, which did not have the means to implement plans to bring about the Paris Agreement. There had been some positive developments, including the use of advanced technologies to facilitate climate-resilient agriculture, which held potential for job creation. Speakers appealed to all countries to move towards a green economy, stating that green industries would be even more critical to reducing emissions and fostering sustainable economies. There needed to be more work to develop legislation around climate change. The Universal Periodic Review mechanism could play a key role in promoting the right to work in the context of climate change. It was essential to ensure that words were met with action.

Concluding Remarks

VIC VAN VUUREN, Acting Deputy Director-General for Policy and Director Enterprises Department, International Labour Organization, said there was a widening gap between the developed and the developing countries. There was a need for appropriate regulatory frameworks to address the issue in an integrated manner. Education policies were producing unemployable youth, and there was a need to find the right skills for future market needs, and to adjust educational policies accordingly. Process was as important as content: there needed to be a path to inclusivity, allowing all to find solutions. The future of employment lay in the small and medium industries - they should be brought to the centre in the greening of industries, and create decent jobs for all.

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HRC22.101E