In September, Lindsey Fielder Cook, QUNO's Representative for Climate Change, attended the Oxford University conference, 1.5C: Meeting the Challenges of the Paris Agreement. QUNO applauds the Paris Agreement commitment to "pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels," yet we are aware this chance will be lost in some 5 years under the current greenhouse gas emission rate. QUNO is concerned that geo-engineering (climate engineering) is receiving more attention than sustainable behavior and economic system transformation, the latter which ca

On the 23rd September, QUNO attended a day long "General Discussion" on the Rights of the Child and the Environment, held at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. QUNO advocates greater integration of human rights and rights-based approaches in climate action.

The 31st session of the Human Rights Council (29 February to 24 March) provided new opportunities for QUNO to raise issues relevant to several areas of ongoing concern, such as the human impacts of climate change, criminal justice reform and the rights of children of incarcerated parents.

In response to the report of the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment, QUNO delivered an oral statement stressing the importance of incorporating a human rights perspective into states' climate action.

Focusing on the role of human rights in producing coherent, legitimate and sustainable policies, as well as the importance of ensuring citizens' participation in climate policy, the statement was delivered by Patrick Endall, Programme Assistant for Food & Sustainability and Climate Change, during the 31st session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. 

With the dust settling on December's climate negotiations in Paris, QUNO's Lindsey Fielder Cook and Katherine Knox from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation were invited by journalism platform the IPF to share their reflections on the conference.

In the interview, they discuss the climate change work that QUNO and JRF have been undertaking and some of the implications of the outcome document, as well as sharing their experiences of the tense, dramatic and ultimately successful two weeks.

Agriculture is a major contributor to anthropogenic climate change, and in turn climate change threatens the viability of food production around the world. The spread of capital- and technology-intensive 'industrial' agriculture in the modern era has been accompanied by an erosion of on-farm genetic diversity, a loss of local knowledge, and the abandonment of traditional farming practices. This undermines our capacity to
adapt to already-changing climatic conditions.

The Geneva Climate Change Concertation Group (GeCCco), the Geneva Interfaith Forum on Climate Change and Human Rights (GIF), QUNO and other NGOs concerned about the impact of climate change on human rights, co-hosted CLIMATE CHANGE AND HUMAN RIGHTS: THE WAY FORWARD IN THE HRC, a side event to the 28th session of the Human Rights Council. The side event was held on Friday, 6 March, from 1-3pm in Room XXVII at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.