A/HRC/44/44 that limit emissions but still have detrimental effects on local peoples and environments. 25 The Independent Expert sees defending lands, resources and waters against such projects as positive expressions of human rights-based international solidarity because this could curb global emissions and protect the applicable rights of indigenous and local peoples to selfdetermination, civic participation and security, to the benefit of all. Environmental defenders have mobilized against mining projects in Asia. 26 They protest the land grabs by, or for, extractive industries in Latin America. 27 They set up blockades and pursue judicial review to halt fossil fuel infrastructure across North America. 28 There is troubling evidence that environmental defenders face criminalization, which exacerbates oppression on the basis of race, given that many are racialized and indigenous peoples. 29 In the spirit of fellowship, however, “defenders” of these defenders are organizing to assist those on the frontlines.30 Therefore, environmental defenders, and their defenders, are demonstrating the utmost solidarity with communities and everyone who faces the negative effects of climate change-related projects by upholding human rights through their direct actions. 31 B. Country-level laws and practices 16. Individual countries may express human rights-based international solidarity with each other and with all of the world’s peoples in the context of climate change partly by eliminating their own contributions to the problem. The Paris Agreement captures this point in affirming that nationally determined contributions will reflect each party’s highest possible ambition. 32 In the Independent Expert’s view, human rights-based international solidarity also demands that countries go further by tackling structural inequities connected to climate change: it requires that countries exchange financial and technological support reflecting common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, safeguard internationally protected groups and create avenues for genuine civic participation. The Paris Agreement and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change have near to universal membership, which means that almost all States have international legal duties to cooperate in taking such separate and collective measures. 17. Although current State efforts to redress climate change are overwhelmingly inadequate, some countries are setting examples of positive expressions of human rightsbased international solidarity in this area, demonstrating that not all States find a “race to the bottom” in the climate change field acceptable. For instance, in 2019, 73 States announced that they were working to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. 33 Since the 1970s, many developing countries have consistently sought assistance to pursue a different and cleaner route to development than the historic path trod by the industrialized countries.34 Furthermore, some domestic courts and tribunals are delivering a (limited) form of human rights-based international solidarity by granting procedural access to justice to 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 6 See Global Witness, Enemies of the State? How Governments and Businesses Silence Land and Environmental Defenders (London, 2019). See Samina Luthfa, “Transnational ties and reciprocal tenacity: resisting mining in Bangladesh with transnational coalition”, Sociology, vol. 51, No. 1 (2017). See Global Witness, Enemies of the State? See Yellowhead Institute, Land Back: A Yellowhead Institute Red Paper (Toronto, 2019). See Global Witness, Enemies of the State? and Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Indigenous Peoples, Afro-Descendent Communities, and Natural Resources: Human Rights Protection in the Context of Extraction, Exploitation and Development Activities (2015). See www.environment-rights.org. There is also compelling evidence that environmental defenders are victims of the struggle to protect the environment: see www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/02/almost-four-environmentaldefenders-a-week-killed-in-2017. Paris Agreement, art. 4 (3). See https://sdg.iisd.org/news/73-countries-commit-to-net-zero-co2-emissions-by-2050. See Karin Mickelson, “South, North, international environmental law, and international environmental lawyers”, Yearbook of International Environmental Law, vol. 11 (2000).