The “Climate and Rights” department aims to carry out dissemination and advocacy activities on the links between climate change and the protection of human rights, with particular reference to the need for international climate commitments to consider the effects of climate change on vulnerable groups.
Contacts:
Started as an in-depth column for Italian Climate Network in 2015, the “Women, Rights and Climate” initiative has evolved into the Climate and Rights Section. The working group made up of young volunteers and ICN team members is coordinated by Chiara Soletti, Policy Advisor and expert in human rights and climate intersectionality; for years she has been carrying out activities aimed at analyzing the link between climate change and human rights, with a particular focus on gender issues.
“That climate change does not affect people equally is well known. Women and men perceive and experience it in different ways because of cultural expectations towards their gender. The roles, responsibilities and rights assigned to women too often translate into a reality that, in dealing with the consequences of climate change, can limit their chances of survival. (…) For these reasons, a gender perspective focused on respect for human rights is a key part of the solution to make climate action inclusive and find effective solutions to collectively address this phenomenon without leaving anyone behind.”
Chiara Soletti
Thanks to the Section’s work, in 2017 Italian Climate Network became an official member of the Women and Gender Constituency and contributing to human rights advocacy initiatives within the UNFCCC. In 2018, it also began participating in the Inter-constituencies Human Rights Advocacy Working Group, an informal working group that operates within the UNFCCC with the aim of promoting the integration of human rights principles within the negotiating texts discussed during the COPs, through an agenda shared across different civil society Constituencies. With the intention of expanding ICN’s work on rights and climate beyond the UNFCCC, the Section oversaw the application to the United Nations Economic and Social Rights Council (UN ECOSOC). The accreditation approved in 2019 and gave ICN access to areas traditionally devoted to human rights, sustainable development, and the environment where the impacts of climate change and the solutions to them are also increasingly being discussed.
Among the achievements of the Climate and Rights Section in recent years are: