A/HRC/20/7 64. Thinking about climate change from a human rights perspective is a fundamental necessity for guiding our global climate change policy in adaptation and mitigation as well as international development policies. Discussions of these issues, like the negotiations during COP17 in Durban, have traditionally focused on the environmental and economic aspects of the issue, with little attention given to human rights. The High Commissioner called on Member States preparing for Rio+20 and COP18 of the UNFCCC to recognize that the future we want, as compared to the future we may get, depends largely on how well we address climate change. This requires considering how to internalize the human consequences of climate change from a rights-based perspective, rather than limiting ourselves to quantitative dimensions alone. 65. Careful consideration of the common but differentiated responsibilities of States, as well as the principle of “equity,” must serve as important guides in the future with regard to climate change (but not to human rights domestically, where responsibilities are equal). Developed countries must continue to take the lead in addressing climate change, both because of their historical responsibility for climate change and because of their higher capacity. 66. Conversely, the international community should also carefully consider the challenges faced by developing countries to achieve sustainable development without the benefit of low-cost energy and fossil fuels that aided the developed world. Developing countries have obligations to their own citizens for adaptation and disaster management and must simultaneously attempt to promote their own economic and social development by switching to new low-emission economic models. 67. Human rights should be considered in all stages of domestic and international mitigation and adaptation policies, and these human rights-based policies must be proactive as well as reactive. A human rights-based approach would assist with operationalizing initiatives to proactively address the impacts of climate change on human rights by providing a realistic assessment of the gaps in current mitigation and adaptation policies. Furthermore, because climate change transcends national borders, the international community must adopt a coordinated approach at both the domestic and international levels. Efforts taken in isolation to address climate change and its effects will no longer work. This approach requires immediate engagement with the existing legal instruments and organizational bodies of the climate change and human rights communities. 68. The seminar concluded that several concrete steps must be taken to tackle these conceptual problems and capitalize on upcoming strategic opportunities. The panellists and speakers concentrated on five major areas, including integrating human rights into climate change and sustainable development, promoting capacitybuilding, utilizing special procedures, ensuring adequate climate financing and improving technology transfer. 69. First, the seminar recognized that the recent developments at the COP17 in Durban created a much needed opportunity for the human rights issues surrounding climate change to be integrated in the new climate regime. Upcoming negotiations on climate change and sustainable development must identify the historical link between States’ level of development and their greenhouse gas emissions. The international community must resist the temptation to accept that economic growth will inevitably remain tied to these emissions, and it must make coordinated and determined efforts towards new economic and social models. As part of this, developed countries must provide climate financing and technology transfer to developing countries so that these emerging economies do not have to abandon their development aspirations in their efforts to keep global emissions to a minimum. 15