Our key takeaway: We heard about the importance of bringing together the climate and environmental and human rights agendas at the 2021 UN Annual Forum on Business and Human Rights, and some practical ways in which companies are seeking to advance on incorporating the concept of the just transition into their actions.
The ‘Preventing and remediating climate harm: Who needs to do what?’ session at the 2021 UN Annual Forum (available to watch in full here) featured a range of speakers looking at climate and human rights from an array of angles.
We heard from the following speakers:
- Tessa Khan, Director & Founder, Uplift (as moderator) discusses why the discussion climate and human rights is timely
- Surya Deva, Chair, UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights discusses the upcoming guidance from the UNWG on climate and the UNGPs
- Jenny Sandvig, Policy Director, Norway’s National Human Rights Institution discusses international and national jurisprudence on climate and human rights
- Sophie Marjanac, Senior Lawyer / Climate Accountability Lead, ClientEarth discusses the implications of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights on the climate policies of businesses and recent climate pledges by companies
- Caio Borges, Portfolio Manager – Law and Climate, Institute for Climate and Society discusses challenges of securing access to effective remedies in the context of climate change-related human rights harms and how communities have sought to overcome them in Brazil
- Yann Wyss, Senior Manager, Social Impact, Nestlé, discusses the connections between climate and human rights due diligence and enabling regenerative agriculture in practice
- Ruwan Subasinghe, Legal Director, International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) discusses what just transition means and what it looks like in practice
You can find further detail on what each of these speakers said here.
