Anger as human rights reference scrapped

Strongly held positions are frequently traded away or dropped by governments out of necessity in the last hours of international negotiations. But the removal of all reference to human rights in the final draft of the Paris climate agreement has dismayed leaders of nearly all the myriad civil society groups pressing for a strong outcome.

According to observers, Britain, Norway, the US and a small group of developed countries actively blocked inclusion of any mention of human rights in the text in retaliation for developing countries' refusal to give ground on a part of the text called “loss and damage”.

Groups representing development, environment, young people, indigenous peoples, trade unions, women, and others, have all reacted angrily, calling the move “highly contentious” and “cynical”.

“What we feared about the text has happened – it is an agreement that is good for the US and bad for the developing world. It says there should be a 'shared effort', which means both poor and wealthy countries are responsible for providing climate finance – this is totally a rewriting of the existing climate convention. This is indeed what the US and other developed countries have been pushing for for years,” said Meena Raman, from the Third World Network.