A/HRC/41/39 social transformation that climate change mitigation demands. Through the actions of the fossil-fuel industry in particular, and highly successful corporate lobbying to downplay or ignore climate change in many countries, the private sector has demonstrated its inability to take any sort of leadership role in climate change mitigation. That is true, even though companies and major investment funds are now acutely aware of the upheavals on the horizon. 122 The result is that Governments, individually and collectively, need to take responsibility for implementing a comprehensive transformative programme aimed at mitigation. The human rights community needs to push strongly for Governments to move rapidly in that direction. 5. Rethinking human rights responses Transcending traditional techniques 70. The international human rights field is dominated by lawyers, who tend to channel their energy into a handful of tried and tested approaches. These include litigation; drafting reports; submitting complaints; advocacy before government agencies, tribunals or treaty bodies; and issuing press releases. 71. They also seek to develop jurisprudence defining the scope and implications of particular rights. Some progress has already been made in clarifying the human rights obligations of States in the context of climate change. An array of courts and other bodies have asserted that climate change poses serious threats to human rights, that States must abide by human rights law in addressing climate change, that they must anticipate and address the foreseeable harms that climate change will bring and that they must strengthen their mitigation commitments. However, much more needs to be done to fill in significant gaps and uncertainties about the obligations of States. 72. With regard to emissions, human rights actors have set broad standards, such as a requirement to “reduce emissions as rapidly as possible, applying the maximum available resources”.123 That is an important initial step, but greater clarity is required as to what it means in practice. It does not give States and other actors clear guidance, allowing them to get away with vague commitments and tepid action. Human rights actors must be willing to translate the obligations of States in a way that more clearly engages with policymaking choices, or they will lose relevance in this debate. 73. Litigation is important and more than 850 climate change cases have been filed in 24 countries.124 The bulk of these seek to hold Governments and companies accountable for emissions and pursue remedies for harms caused by their failure to reduce emissions they knew would be harmful. There is a recent and important uptick in cases brought to hold actors accountable for failures to adapt to the foreseeable effects of climate change. 125 Those cases put States on further notice that they must take into account loss of livelihoods, displacement, food insecurity and other effects of climate change, but litigation is only one small part of an overall strategy. Community activism 74. Much human rights activity is bureaucratized and sanitized, satisfying itself with formal procedural outcomes that might have little direct real-world impact. The roots of human rights and the real driving force for progress can only come from community mobilization. Governments overwhelmingly stand for the status quo and are thus unlikely to take a strong lead when radical change is needed. Much of the human rights community retains strong grass-roots links and is well placed to encourage and facilitate community 122 123 124 125 16 See Georgi Kantchev and Sarah Kent, “Funds say climate change is now part of their investing equation”, Wall Street Journal, 10 June 2019; and CDP, “Major risk or rosy opportunity: are companies ready for climate change?” (2019). Mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the environment, “Statement on the human rights obligations related to climate change, with a particular focus on the right to life”, 25 October 2018. UN Environment, “The status of climate change litigation: a global review” (2017), p. 10. Ibid., pp. 16 and 23.