A/HRC/36/46 to reply to a questionnaire and was pleased to note that in their responses States recognized the importance of applying the rights of indigenous peoples to climate change adaptation and mitigation measures, and that additional funding was being allocated for such purposes. 35. Among the key rights affected are self-determination; the right to development; free, prior and informed consent and the right to participation; land rights; the rights to health, food, water and an adequate standard of living; and cultural rights. All these rights are closely linked, and thus their interrelatedness requires consideration. 17 36. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which entered into force in 1994, sets a lofty goal: to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations at a level that would prevent dangerous human-induced interference with the climate system, based on a dual strategy of mitigation and adaptation measures. 18 37. Building on the Convention, the Paris Agreement, which entered into force in 2016, aims to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping a global temperature rise this century to below 2o Celsius above preindustrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further, to 1.5o Celsius.19 As of 1 September 2017, of the 197 parties to the Convention, 160 had ratified the Paris Agreement. 38. The Paris Agreement is the first climate change treaty to explicitly recognize human rights and the rights of indigenous peoples. The preamble acknowledges that climate change is a common concern of humankind and that parties should, when taking action to address climate change, respect, promote and consider their respective obligations on human rights, the right to health and the rights of indigenous peoples. These references provide an important milestone and commitment, as in implementing the Agreement, parties should ensure that indigenous peoples’ rights are respected in their climate change measures. 39. Despite these important developments, indigenous peoples were disappointed that indigenous peoples’ rights were not more securely included in the Paris Agreement. One of their key objectives was to include references to the rights of indigenous peoples in all the relevant provisions on mitigation and adaptation. During the negotiations, Canada, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru and the Philippines, along with several Pacific island States, supported the inclusion of references to indigenous peoples in the text. On the other hand, other countries argued against their inclusion on the grounds that they were not directly relevant to the purposes of the Agreement and out of concern over the potential liability of including such references in the operative part of the text. The voluntary nature of the references to indigenous knowledge systems in article 7 (5) on adaptation is viewed as falling short of the goals of indigenous peoples. A. Self-determination and the right to development 40. Self-determination is a fundamental principle of international law and of utmost importance for indigenous peoples as it affirms their right to freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development. It is a key right in the areas of climate change and climate finance because of its links with land rights and the right of indigenous peoples to participate in processes and decisions affecting them. The right to self-determination is enshrined in common article 1 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and in article 3 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. 41. Denial of indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination and their economic, social and cultural rights is strongly linked to indigenous peoples’ historical experiences of marginalization, dispossession, the environmental destruction of their ancestral lands and their lack of autonomy. Unless climate finance recognizes this inequality, it could 17 18 19 8 See http://unsr.vtaulicorpuz.org/site/index.php/en/statements/63-panel-hrc-cc and A/HRC/31/52. See http://unfccc.int/essential_background/convention/items/6036.php. See http://unfccc.int/paris_agreement/items/9485.php.