A/HRC/44/44 E. Global laws and practices 25. There are extensive global laws and practices that manifest human rights-based international solidarity in the context of climate change. For example, there are regular global summits that generate momentum for cooperative actions among the diverse actors discussed in the present report: States, indigenous peoples, regions, cities, youth, civil societies and United Nations bodies, among others. There are, however, precious few accountability mechanisms in these summits to gauge the hundreds of commitments announced there about addressing climate change in one way or another, and this may obscure climate inaction. Nonetheless, efforts are ongoing to monitor such transnational commitments, for instance at the United Nations Environment Programme. These efforts express international solidarity because they foster and enhance bottom-up endeavours that diverse groups are making to meet common goals for all human beings. 26. One such common goal is the limitation on temperature rise that is contained in the Paris Agreement. Although the accord endorses two temperature goals of avoiding increases beyond 2C and 1.5C, the 2019 Climate Action Summit “reinforced the global understanding that 1.5C is the socially, economically, politically and scientifically safe limit to global warming”. 63 The basis for this statement was a report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 64 The request to undertake the Panel’s report, and its uptake, are strong examples of human rights-based international solidarity because they assist those most susceptible to the negative impacts of climate change, including small island developing States and the least developed countries. These countries and their allies pushed for the more stringent threshold in the Paris Agreement due to evidence of the risks to vulnerable populations and ecosystems at a limit of 2C.65 States then invited the Panel to report on the implications of the lower threshold. In the report, the Panel confirmed it would be “markedly easier to achieve many aspects of sustainable development, with greater potential to eradicate poverty and reduce inequalities” at 1.5C rather than 2C.66 Emblematic of human rights-based international solidarity, the report is now being widely referenced to identify concrete steps that would better protect the human rights of the poorest and most vulnerable peoples threatened by higher temperatures. 27. The Association of Small Island States was one of the negotiating blocs that advocated for a stringent temperature limit and has consistently exercised human rightsbased international solidarity through other practices at the global level. The Association is a coalition of 44 small island and low-lying developing States in Africa, the Caribbean, the South China Sea and the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Because members are highly susceptible to climate change, the association has made efforts to obtain strong mitigation pledges, support for adaptation and redress for loss and damage. Beyond these efforts, the Association’s members led a powerful campaign to articulate the link between human rights and climate change in the 2007 Malé Declaration on the Human Dimension of Global Climate Change. The Association’s successes, of which there are many, can be partly explained by its unwavering commitment to global justice and alliances with industrialized States, public interest organizations, and human rights bodies and mandate holders. 67 The Association’s struggles exemplify the pursuit of international human rights through a deep solidarity-driven vision and path. 28. Finally, the positive collaborations among trade unions, employers, Governments and international organizations to achieve a just transition towards sustainable work systems are also worthy of note. The necessity to transform polluting sectors, underscored 63 64 65 66 67 10 Secretary-General, “Report of the Secretary-General on the 2019 Climate Action Summit and the way forward in 2020” (2019), p. 5. See Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Global Warming of 1.5°C. See Lavanya Rajamani and Jacob Werksman, “The legal character and operational relevance of the Paris Agreement’s temperature goal”, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, vol. 376, No. 2119 (2018). See Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Global Warming of 1.5°C, p. 447. See, e.g., Carola Betzold, “‘Borrowing’ power to influence international negotiations: AOSIS in the climate change regime, 1990–1997”, Politics, vol. 30, No. 3 (2010).