International law needs to develop to keep pace with climate change.
It is creating new legal challenges for countries and communities, including unavoidable climate change-related loss and damage.
The biggest challenge globally is to agree and design a fair and effective new climate change agreement, which will involve tackling issues that have never been tackled before.
Finding solutions should involve exploring new ideas and considering lessons from different areas of law. Transitional justice is one area that may provide lessons and ideas for climate change.
Transitional justice refers to processes and mechanisms used in countries and societies that are trying to make a transition from violent conflict or large-scale human rights abuses to peace and reconciliation.
It includes criminal prosecutions, truth processes, reparations for victims and governance reforms.
There are great differences between most of the climate change-related challenges referred to here and the terrible situations faced by countries and communities that are trying to confront and move forward from conflict and violence, but experience and ideas from transitional justice could help develop responses to climate change, including at the global level.
There are also areas where transitional justice is directly relevant to climate change-related challenges.
For the complete article, please see Responding to Climate Change.
Climate Diplomacy Week is a perfect opportunity to highlight positive climate action, set new goals and engage more and new actors in the fight against the devastating impacts of climate change. Each year, the week has its own character. Climate Diplomacy Week 2018, from 24-30 September, was marked by action – throughout the world, civil society participated in inspiring educational activities and engaged the wider public in the climate cause.
In a move that underscored Donald Trump’s isolation on trade and climate change, the two major economies inserted a reference to the Paris Agreement into Ceta.
Fourteen Latin American and Caribbean countries made history at the UN General Assembly on September 27 by signing the Escazú Agreement, a regional accord on public participation and access to information and justice in environmental affairs. It is the first region-wide agreement of its kind and has been touted a big step forward in recognising the rights of environmental defenders. Signatories now need to ratify the Agreement internally before it can enter into force.
Though India is now pushing for BIMSTEC, geography dictates that it cannot ignore SAARC. South Asia is extremely vulnerable to a range of climate impacts, ranging from shrinking glaciers and water scarcity to floods and rising sea levels. Responding to these risks is a complex task, also because often impacts affect more than one country and their severity exceeds the capacity of national governments. Climate change creates new challenges for regional organisations, and simultaneously increases their relevance.