As COP27 launches, ECO takes this opportunity to remind our dear readers that climate justice is indistinguishable from human rights. Climate impacts affect many rights – the rights to health, livelihoods and decent work, adequate housing, and ultimately the right to life itself. But there can be no progress towards equitable and fair solutions to the climate crisis unless civil society – and that means people everywhere – has space for speaking up, protesting and joining together with others to do so. In the lexicon of human rights, that’s the right to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, association and public participation. These are fundamental and inalienable rights set out after the devastation of WWII, drafted by people from all regions, political and religious beliefs and accepted as legal obligations which states must abide by.
But what we see is all too many countries locking up people who speak their minds or who go out in the street to protest. This is not acceptable wherever it happens, and civil society stands together in solidarity with our imprisoned, harassed, and threatened sisters and brothers who are trying to create a better world and have suffered as a result. We are watching and we demand an end to these practices.
Negotiators have a responsibility to ensure that human rights are fully reflected in every discussion, every proposal, and every outcome in this process. To do less is to sell everyone’s interests short.
While we are physically convening here in Sharm El-Sheikh to demand climate justice, our hearts go out all those deprived of liberty or facing repression around the world. We collectively refuse to pretend that climate justice and the struggle for rights are disconnected, and we stand together in solidarity with our brothers and sisters who cannot be here with us.