A/HRC/41/39 Expert meetings have been organized, the High Commissioner has noted that States have “an obligation to strengthen their mitigation commitments in order to prevent the worst impacts of climate change”42 and the current OHCHR management plan for the period 2018 to 2021 lists climate change as one of five “frontier issues”. However, the bottom line is that climate change advocacy remains marginal to the major concerns of the Office. 21. Lest it be observed that double standards are at play, the same is true of the previous work by the Special Rapporteur. Treaty bodies 22. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has produced the most extensive and focused response to date by a treaty body, affirming in 2018 that the “failure to prevent foreseeable human rights harm caused by climate change, or a failure to mobilize the maximum available resources in an effort to do so” by a State could constitute a breach of its legal obligations. 43 In the same year, 42 per cent of the Committee’s concluding observations on State reports addressed climate change. 44 23. In its general comment No. 36 (2018) on the right to life, the Human Rights Committee broke important new ground by recognizing that “environmental degradation, climate change and unsustainable development constitute some of the most pressing and serious threats to the ability of present and future generations to enjoy the right to life”. The Committee called for sustainable resource use, substantive environmental standards, impact assessments, consultation with and notification of other States, access to information and due regard to the precautionary approach. Perhaps most importantly, it called for measures by States to preserve and protect the environment, including in relation to “climate change caused by public and private actors”. 24. Treaty bodies have recommended that States set national targets for greenhouse gas emissions, intensify efforts to reach targets, transition to renewable energy, regulate private actors, mitigate the impact of natural disasters and protect vulnerable populations. However, in-depth analysis of the three most engaged treaty bodies (the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women) shows that just 9 per cent of references to climate change since 2008 have dealt with mitigation, the issue of greatest importance for reversing the current trajectory. These bodies appear far more comfortable in addressing adaptation, impacts on particular groups and procedural rights than confronting the core causes of climate change itself. And while the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has pushed developing countries to seek assistance, treaty bodies have by and large not taken a role in determining the responsibility of wealthier countries to provide financial and technical assistance for climate action. 45 Special procedures 25. A number of Special Rapporteurs have written on climate change, including about the impact on housing, food, internal displacement, migration, and indigenous peoples.46 In 2016, the Special Rapporteur on the issue of human rights obligations relating to the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment wrote in a landmark report that “States have obligations to adopt legal and institutional frameworks that protect against, and respond to, environmental harm that may or does interfere with the enjoyment of human rights” (A/HRC/31/52). In the near future, the Coordination Committee of 42 43 44 45 46 6 See open letter from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on integrating human rights in climate action to the Permanent Missions in New York and Geneva, 21 November 2018. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, “Climate change and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights”, 8 October 2018. See Centre for International Environmental Law and the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, “States’ human rights obligations in the context of climate change: 2019 update” (February 2019). Ibid. See A/64/255, A/70/287, A/66/285, A/67/299 and A/HRC/36/46 respectively.