South Centre Input to SR on Climate Change Report, September 2026
Input on Technologies related to Climate Change and their Impacts on Human Rights
Special Rapporteur on Climate Change
South Centre
September 2026
Technological progress alone cannot resolve the compounding crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. Without a human rights-centred framework, deploying speculative and capital-intensive technologies risks reproducing historical extractivism and shifting ecological and social burdens onto developing countries and vulnerable communities.
The South Centre has submitted its formal input to the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change, addressing the multifaceted impacts of climate-related technologies.
Drawing on landmark advisory opinions from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), as well as the Right to Science under Article 15 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), our submission underscores four structural priorities:
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Comprehensive Social Life Cycle Assessments (SLCAs): Assessments must go beyond operational carbon accounting to evaluate the full value chain—from upstream mineral extraction and localized water depletion to downstream e-waste disposal.
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Binding Due Diligence & Precautionary Principle: States hold an objective duty to prevent significant transboundary harm. Stringent necessity tests, human rights impact assessments, and Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) are mandatory before licensing new interventions.
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Operationalising Common But Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities (CBDR-RC): Advanced economies with greater historical responsibility must fulfill obligations via direct domestic decarbonization, public grant-based climate finance, and unencumbered technology transfers, not by treating developing nations as testing grounds for high-risk offsets.
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Safeguarding Sovereign Regulatory Space from ISDS: Outdated international investment agreements with Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanisms and speculative discounted cash flow damages lead to “regulatory chill”. States must protect their policy space to drive community-based defossilisation without the threat of multi-billion-dollar investor arbitrations.