A/HRC/48/78
communities in the midst of crises. Investments in climate resilience programmes help
farmers to adapt and to protect food security.
79.
Developed nations, multinational corporations and investors should help to
develop new sustainable development models, such as sustainable energy. They should
support COVID-19 recovery plans aimed at radical reductions in carbon in Africa and
communities of the African descent in the diaspora. They should also make serious and
immediate efforts to transition from extractive energy systems to sustainable energy, to
demand corporate accountability for water pollution, to ensure common access to clean
water, and to understand anti-poverty measures as fundamental to climate
preparedness.
80.
The multiple crises of climate change and other forms of environmental
degradation, racial inequity and the COVID-19 pandemic demand recovery efforts that
prioritize women, young people and other marginalized communities. Government
immigration policies should accommodate climate migrants and others moving for
reasons related to climate change, and meet their needs. Governments should also plan
climate resiliency into global nutrition and food security programmes for Africa and
communities of African descent. They should support food system strategies that
mitigate the emissions caused by both food production and consumption.
81.
States should recognize the rights of people of African descent to ancestral
territories and value ancestral knowledge to mitigate climate change; and develop
policies and of capacity-building programmes to help communities to protect nature
and to strengthen their ability to resist climate change and other environmental
destruction.
82.
All States should address the ways in which systemic racism and multiple and
intersecting systems of discrimination have disproportionately affected people of
African descent; this includes directing climate adaptation and mitigation funding to
communities that have historically experienced discrimination, and seeking climate
solutions that also serve to rectify historical inequities. Climate financing should be
localized to support community-led solutions. An assessment of racial impact should be
a part of human rights due diligence efforts for all climate and environmental action,
and there should be accountability for human rights violations and environmental
damage, including reparations. There must be free, prior and informed consent from
communities to ensure people of African descent are consulted and enjoy the benefits
arising from the use of their land, and meaningfully addressing climate change-related
loss and damage experienced by marginalized communities.
83.
All States should recognize and pay reparations for the centuries of harm to
Afro-descendants rooted in slavery and colonialism. States should consider the
CARICOM 10-point action plan for reparations for guidance in this regard.
84.
Decision-makers should examine the effect of interaction of historical and
structural discrimination on people of African descent and climate change to inform
their policymaking, in particular with regard to any unintended impact of emergency
response plans; have greater recognition of the existing vulnerability of people of
African descent when designing adaptation measures; ensure the interaction of climate
mitigation policies for existing sites of concentrated air pollution and the demographic
makeup of these areas (such as mitigation of environmentally-induced asthma in
communities of African descent); and bear in mind the risk of climate mitigation
policies incentivizing the seizure of land.
85.
Special measures should be regarded as part of a State’s climate change response
to enhance the effectiveness of emergency response and adaptation measures by
reducing the vulnerability of people of African descent and the social impact of climate
mitigation measures. Special measures include granting access to health and housing,
given that climate change presents a significant threat to both and they are a major
source of accumulation of disadvantage; to land, particularly to reduce the impact of
mitigation policies that might incentivize the seizure of land; and to education, to ensure
that people of African descent have greater access to economic opportunities, political
participation and justice. These are fundamental to reduce vulnerabilities and the
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