Climate Change, the Paris Agreement and Human Rights

Abstract The 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change is relevant to human rights law, not for what it says about human rights— which is next to nothing—but for what it says about the need to address the risk of climate change taking global temperatures above 1.5 or 2 °C. The Agreement could work, or it could fail by a large margin, but those who want to influence the outcome can still do so. That includes the human rights community. Since climate change is plainly a threat to human rights, how should the UN human rights institutions respond? Should they use their existing powers of oversight to focus attention on how States parties implement (or fail to implement) commitments made in the Paris Agreement? Or should they recognize a right to the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment? Either choice would represent a significant contribution to the debate on human rights and climate change, giving humanity as a whole a voice that at present is scarcely heard.