Statement by India at the 2019 Geneva Forum on Human Rights and Climate Change during Session 2: Taking stock of the achievements secured during the past 10 years: Resolutions, the UPR process, the Special Procedures, the Advisory Committee: Lessons Learnt and potential opportunities, delivered by Ms. Mini Devi Kumam, First Secretary on 6th June 2019, Room XXII Palais
Madam Chair,
1.We appreciate convening of this meeting and value the views expressed by various experts on this topic.
2. It goes without saying that the Human Rights Council, its subsidiary bodies and mechanisms have paid their attention to the negative impacts of climate change on human rights.
3. Just to enumerate a few, the first resolution of the Council on the human rights and climate change enabled a detailed analytical study on the relationship between climate change and human rights. The latest resolution calls upon all States to consider human rights within the framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. India is implementing the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) which encompasses eight national missions in specific areas being implemented through the nodal ministries.
4. Building on these resolutions, the Council established the mandate for the Independent Expert on human rights and the environment in 2012 which was extended in March 2015 as a Special Rapporteur. Several reports have been presented to the Council since then such as the mapping report in 2014, good practices report in 2015, climate change report in 2016, implementation report in 2016 and biodiversity report in 2017 among others. As per the Mapping report, 11 other Special Procedures have connected environmental harm to the infringements of human rights under their mandates. The same report refers that 131 out of 192 States raised environmental issues before the UPR Working Group, either through their national reports or through their oral presentations during their review in the first cycle of UPR. We are now informed by the panelists that the discussions on human rights and climate change have increased.
5. We have two questions. One is regarding how human rights and climate change issue could be increasingly discussed in the UPR mechanism. Second, how the Council foresees the usage of the reports submitted to the Council by the SR on environment further?
Thank you, Madam Chair.
*******
