GeCCco - Geneva Climate Change Consultation Group

The Geneva Climate Change Consultation Group brings together civil society organizations working in Geneva to advance human rights in the context of climate change through the United Nations System.

GeCCco provides a space to share information, analysis, and expertise; discuss developments within UN human rights mechanisms and other Geneva-based institutions; and develop joint civil society initiatives.

What began as informal coffee meetings (to introduce and bring forward the human rights issues raised by climate change to the work of the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Bodies) has grown into a collaborative platform for collective thinking, strategizing, to push for and contribute to stronger action and monitoring on climate change and human rights:

• Sharing analysis and expertise on climate change & human rights issues;
• Sharing information and updates, about the work of the UN human rights bodies in Geneva, as well as other relevant institutions in Geneva (such as IOM, PDD, UNDRR, etc.);
• Envisaging how to strengthen the attention given by the human rights bodies & other concerned IGOs based in Geneva to the impact on human rights of climate change and response policies;
• Developing or contributing to collective civil society actions addressing HR bodies & concerned IGOs in Geneva;

GeCCco maintains close links with other civil society networks and keeps a close eye on international climate processes, including the UNFCCC process, thanks to the NGO Working Group on Human Rights and climate Change (HRCCWG), the oldest and main coalition on this matter..

The GeCCco has benefited since its beginning of the logistical support of the FES Geneva Office, where it holds most of its meetings. It keeps close ties with other concerned civil society platforms in Geneva, such as the Geneva Interfaith Forum on Climate Change, the Environment & Human Rights (GIF).

Civil society organizations (CSOs) have identified and raised issues about the human rights challenges related to climate change already at the time of the previous UN Commission on Human Rights1. This work took a new dimension with the creation by the UN of the Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva in 2006. CSOs supported the first Resolution of this Council on climate change, when tabled by the Maldives in 2008 (Resolution 7/23). It was followed in 2009 by the first report of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). In 2010, the UN HRC Social Forum dedicated its 7th meeting to the adverse effects of climate change on human rights, where CSOs filed a petition asking for the creation of a Special Rapporteur on human rights and climate change. It’s in September 2021 that the HRC established the new mandate of “Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change”.

In parallel to these developments, UN Special Procedures produced an increasing number of reports on how climate change affected or related to a wide number of human rights, based on information from civil society organizations on the ground. UN Treaty Bodies also received alternative country reports including climate change related matters, encouraging them to develop their jurisprudence on the human rights obligations of States, relating to climate change issues.

In 2015, one of the first preparatory meeting toward the UNFCCC COP21 in Paris, took place in Geneva, in the room in front of the HRC. It provided a unique opportunity to open the discussions, which led in Paris to the inclusion of the human rights paragraphs in the Preamble of the Paris Agreement, adopted at the end of the year.

(1) See the conference room paper considered in 2004 with regard to the human rights aspects of the problem of States that will disappear for environmental reasons and the “Expanded working paper by Françoise Hampson on the human rights situation of indigenous peoples in States and other territories threatened with extinction for environmental reasons” (E/CN.4/Sub.2/2005/28 16 June 2005).