A/HRC/41/39 64. If a threat that is likely to challenge or undermine the enjoyment of almost every human right in the international bill of rights does not bring concerted action by human rights proponents, they will have rendered themselves marginal or irrelevant to humanity’s most pressing short-, medium- and long-term challenge. 65. While some activists, lawyers, affected communities and occasionally Governments, have undertaken promising, creative and urgently needed strategies for bringing human rights to bear on climate change, the dominant response has been one of immense caution, if not abdication. The community as a whole, as well as each of its component parts, needs to step up and engage determinedly and creatively with climate change. 2. Acknowledge the threats to democracy and civil and political rights 66. Consideration of the likely risks that will flow from climate change invariably focuses primarily if not exclusively on the rights to life, water and sanitation, health, food and housing, yet democracy and the rule of law, as well as a wide range of civil and political rights, are just as much at risk.119 Many commentators have insisted that climate change should be considered an emergency, and that Governments and others should act accordingly.120 While this might not be intended to suggest the formal declaration of a state of emergency that would justify limitations on human rights, States may very well respond to climate change by augmenting government powers and circumscribing some rights. That will be a very fraught process and require great vigilance on the part of Governments, human rights institutions and national and regional courts. 67. Additionally, the uncertainty and insecurity in which many populations will be living, combined with large-scale movements of people both internally and across borders, will pose immense and unprecedented challenges to governance.121 The risk of community discontent, of growing inequality and of even greater levels of deprivation among some groups will likely stimulate nationalist, xenophobic, racist and other responses. Maintaining a balanced approach to civil and political rights, whether in a society that is determinedly seeking to mitigate climate change or one that is in denial, will be extremely complex. 3. Revitalize economic and social rights 68. As people’s access to food, land, water, health care, housing and education are threatened or destroyed, there will be an ever greater need for principled policies that ensure respect for economic and social rights. The sorts of transformational policies called for, with the concomitant need for a more equal distribution of resources and the satisfaction of essential needs, will also demand much more systematic engagement with these rights than most Governments or human rights groups have so far considered. Coping with the unavoidably dramatic impacts of climate change will be much harder if people’s economic and social rights are not protected. That applies doubly in the case of those living in poverty, whose plight is almost certain to be greatly exacerbated. There is a strong case for advance planning and strategizing around these challenges, but very little evidence of that being undertaken. 4. Take regulatory responsibility 69. The dominant neoliberal economic orthodoxy, reflected in the push supported by international organizations including the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, favouring privatization, deregulation and austerity in the form of fiscal consolidation means that governmental regulation is very much out of vogue. However, it is clear that corporate actors cannot and will not, of their own accord, be capable of promoting a comprehensive approach that ensures the sort of economic and 119 120 121 See Amnesty International, “Climate change”. David Spratt and Ian Dunlop, “What lies beneath: the understatement of existential climate risk” (2018) p. 39. See Ayşem Mert, “Democracy in the Anthropocene: a new scale”, in Anthropocene Encounters: New Directions in Green Political Thinking, Frank Biermann and Eva Lövbrand, eds. (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2019). 15