IN A NUTSHELL Author's noteThis post argues that only a United Nations (UN) General Assembly Special Session on climate change offers the best hope of clearing the international logjam of States’ climate inaction and avoiding the worst impacts of climate change
By David Patterson LLM, MSc, HonMFPH, PhD Candidate
Department of Transboundary Legal Studies
Faculty of Law, University of Groningen, Netherlands
Member, Steering Committee, Human rights and the climate crisis working group
Member, Steering Committee, EUPHA law and public health section
Pitch for a UN General Assembly Special Session on Climate Change
At the 2024 climate change summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, WHO launched a report titled ‘Health is the argument for climate action.’ ‘Fossil fuels are making us sick,’ the report stated, ‘and their time is up.’ WHO continued:
Urgent climate action is a matter of life or death. Despite this, we continue to increase [greenhouse gas – GHG] emissions and overlook the human impact of inaction even as we pass critical tipping points. The climate crisis is a health crisis, and climate [change] drives disease burdens of all types – communicable and vector borne diseases, noncommunicable disease, maternal and child health, mental health, and trauma.
We could not agree more. The impact of climate change on human health has been documented for decades by the IPCC, WHO and health and medical journals, including by the medical journal The Lancet in its Lancet Countdown series.
In 1992 the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was opened for signature at the UN Conference on Environment and Development, in Rio de Janeiro. Two more treaties followed: the Kyoto Protocol (1999) and the Paris Agreement (2015). These three ‘climate treaties’ together aim to ensure we avoid the worst impacts of climate change, particularly on developing countries and vulnerable communities, everywhere. Yet in 2025, ten years after the Paris Agreement, we are surging past our commitment to keep average global warming below 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels, and are well on track for 2.7°C or higher. Most countries are already experiencing some form of climate chaos. Yet States are backing away from their Paris Agreement obligations: even the tepid commitment at the 28th UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (CoP28) to ‘transition away from fossil fuels’ was not echoed in the CoP29 communique, with discussions postponed.
Why have States not responded with urgent action commensurate with the threat of climate change? Decades-long disinformation and obfuscation by the fossil fuel industry is certainly a factor, aided by compliant global media corporations, where climate change is either diminished or is portrayed as natural, distant, and perhaps inevitable, perhaps even positive for some. Notably, however, the intended voting procedure in the draft UNFCCC Rules of Procedure (rule 42), which provides for two-thirds majority voting, has never been agreed. Voting remains by (undefined) ‘consensus.’ Motions can be blocked by a single country, depending on the interpretation of consensus by the chairperson at the time.
This limitation has long stalled substantive progress on phasing out fossil fuels and progress towards a just transition. Further, the entire UN human rights machinery (which today includes the human rights treaties, their monitoring bodies, Special Rapporteur, secretariat OHCHR, Universal Periodic Review, and UN Human Rights Council) was sidestepped in the drafting of the climate treaties. The only reference to human rights in the climate treaties is in the Preamble to the Paris Agreement.
Fossil fuel exporting States have seized upon this failure to anchor global climate action more deeply in international human rights and environmental law. At the International Court of Justice (ICJ) hearings on climate change in 2024, these States argued that they had no obligations under international law beyond what was expressly stated in the climate treaties. Thankfully, the ICJ flatly disagreed. We now have strong, far-reaching legal advice from the ICJ on States’ obligations to respond to climate change that includes obligations under the climate treaties, UN human rights and environmental treaties, and customary international law. But the ICJ advice is just that – advice – and in itself it won’t break up the logjam of State inaction under the climate treaties, which is grounded in part in the CoPs’ fatal requirement for consensus.
There is a way forward. The General Assembly is the UN’s main deliberative, policy-making and representative body. Voting is by simple majority (not consensus) on most matters. The General Assembly may convene in a so-called Special Session (UNGASS) to address urgent, wide-ranging concerns, as seen in previous UNGASS on corruption, COVID-19, the world drug problem, and the welfare of children. Civil society participation is an important component of these events. In a symposium in Opinio Juris, Benjamin Mason Meier and I recall how in 2001 the UNGASS on HIV/AIDS marked a turning point in the global response to the HIV pandemic. The resulting Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS anchored the response to HIV with time-bound commitments to concreted action; called for a global health fund (which led to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria), and requested the UN Secretary-General to initiate a periodic monitoring process to track States’ progress on implementing their commitments. UNGASS resolutions are not binding, however with UNAIDS’ support States’ periodic reporting has continued to this day.
An UNGASS on climate change has the potential to break the logjam by reaffirming States’ legal obligations under both the climate treaties and human rights and environmental law, as identified by the ICJ. The resulting UNGASS resolution, perhaps titled ‘Declaration of Commitment to Climate Action and Just Transition’, should welcome the ICJ advisory opinion and include commitments both to accelerate action under the climate treaties and to implement the additional legal obligations identified by the ICJ. The resolution could include commitments to monitoring and reporting on human rights-based processes in developing and implementing Nationally Determined Commitments and National Action Plans, including through the meaningful participation of affected communities, workers, Indigenous Peoples, women, youth and marginalized groups. Most importantly, the resolution should call for the UN Secretary-General to report periodically to the General Assembly on progress achieved in realising States’ commitments in the Declaration.
Some States and their fossil fuel industry backers will probably argue that an UNGASS on climate change is unnecessary. A few States, including major GHG emitters and fossil fuel exporters, may shun the General Assembly whatever the outcome. Yet an UNGASS Declaration of Commitment to Climate Action and Just Transition may well nudge the UNFCCC Conference of Parties to finalise the Paris Rule Book and begin to reclaim climate justice. If we and future generations are to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, the status quo cannot continue.
By the same Author on PEAH WHO, the Right to Health and the Climate Crisis – What Advice for the ICJ? Strategic Litigation and Social Mobilisation: Part of Public Health’s Advocacy Toolbox to Address the Climate Crisis Public Health, Climate Change and Strategic Litigation: Building a Powerful Alliance between Public Health Practitioners, Communities, and Legal Advocates Why Some Global Health Experts Didn’t Sign the Call on the United Nations for Human Rights Guidelines on Healthy Diets and Sustainable Food Systems Pick the Odd One Out: Sugar, Salt, Animal Fat, Climate Change: What Are We Teaching? Falsified and Substandard Medicines: Threat to the SDGs – but Who’s Watching, Caring or Acting?