Governments and advocates attending UN climate talks in Bonn from June 5 to 15, 2023 should push for rights-respecting and ambitious climate action, Human Rights Watch said today.

To uphold their human rights obligations, governments should commit to a phaseout of all fossil fuels as an overarching agreement of the upcoming COP28 conference. They should assure that the United Arab Emirates, the host, will enable civil society to freely demand climate action before, during, and after the conference.

“The UAE COP28 host is a petrostate with a deeply repressive government that is aggressively expanding its fossil fuel industry,” said Richard Pearshouse, environment director at Human Rights Watch. “Bonn will be a watershed moment for all governments committed to achieving ambitious climate action to show that they are willing to stand up for phasing out fossil fuels and demanding civil society can meaningfully participate.”

The Bonn Climate Change conference will lay the groundwork for negotiations at the UN Conference of Parties (COP28) from November 30 to December 12. It increasingly appears that the UAE is seeking to use its position as host to burnish its image while continuing to push the expansion of fossil fuels, undermining efforts to confront the climate crisis and protect human rights, Human Rights Watch said.

Governments attending the conferences should live up to their human rights obligation to address climate change, including by calling for the equitable and rights-respecting phasing out of all fossil fuels in the COP28 conclusions, Human Rights Watch said. An explicit reference to all fossil fuels in the COP28 outcome document would be an important first in international climate negotiations.