THE NCQG AS A KEY OPPORTUNITY TO ADVANCE HUMAN RIGHTS-BASED CLIMATE ACTION

KEY MESSAGES

• QUANTITY IS KEY TO FULFILLING HUMAN RIGHTS OBLIGATIONS. Committing to an ambitious needs-based quantum in the scale of trillions of public, grants-based finance for the NCQG is a matter of justice and human rights obligations.
• QUANTITY WITHOUT QUALITY IS MEANINGLESS. The NCQG must not only commit to scaling up the quantum of public finance provided from 2025, but also focus on the quality of climate finance provided and mobilized. This requires compliance with human rights and enshrining core principles in the NCQG such as gender-responsiveness, disability-inclusiveness, just transition, and frameworks for youth and children’s meaningful participation in decision-making to ensure intergenerational equity. Climate finance must address the specific needs, priorities, and vulnerabilities in climate-impacted regions and communities, with simplified and increased accessibility, a commitment to grant support, non-debt-creating instruments, and improved transparency and accountability arrangements.
• ANCHOR NCQG DECISION IN HUMAN RIGHTS OBLIGATIONS. We need an explicit commitment to respect, protect, and fulfill human rights, including Indigenous Peoples’ rights, and gender equality, and combat historically grown inequalities that is translated into operational mandates.

PRINCIPLES THAT MUST BE EMBEDDED IN THE NCQG:

• The NCQG must be in line with and uphold the UNFCCC principles of equity, historical responsibility, CBDR-RC, as well as the polluters pay principle and align with Just Transition principles, as defined by the ILO 2023 resolution and 2015 guidelines on Just Transition.
• The NCQG must acknowledge that climate change is a common concern of humankind and that Parties should when taking action to finance and address climate change, respect, promote and consider their respective obligations on human rights, including the rights of Indigenous Peoples, women and girls, local communities, migrants, refugees, workers, youth, children and people in vulnerable situations, the right a healthy environment, to health and to development.   
• The NCQG must ensure that climate finance is responsive to and takes into account the needs and priorities of Indigenous Peoples, local communities, migrants, refugees, workers,  people with disabilities, youth and children, as well as as well as gender equality and empowerment of women, intergenerational equity, and just transitions. It must recognize the roles of Indigenous Peoples and their knowledge in addressing and responding to climate change and recognition of using their knowledge in the design and delivery of climate finance.

STRUCTURE:

• Establish an NCQG structure that guarantees a public finance provision goal that:

• reflects the evolving needs and priorities of developing countries.
• reflects the evolving needs of Indigenous Peoples, women and girls, local communities, migrants, refugees, workers, people with disability, youth, children and people in vulnerable situations.
• flows from developed to developing countries, their communities, and to all Indigenous Peoples from the seven socio-cultural regions.
• includes loss and damage as a thematic sub-goal on equal terms with support for mitigation and adaptation with targets for the provision of public finance for each.
• ensures finance for just transition that respect, promote and fulfill human rights and labor rights.
• excludes any reference to carbon markets as carbon markets are not finance
• excludes any  finance that contributes to the expansion and continuation of the production of fossil fuels.

SOURCES

• Promote progressive tax policies, with developed countries taking the lead, including progressive taxation on the wealthiest people, fossil fuel companies, and high-emitting companies, enabling the scaling down of harmful incentives, while protecting the livelihoods of lower-income people.
• Promote debt cancellation as a critical means to increase States’ fiscal space to enable meaningful climate action.

QUALITY OF FINANCE

• Stipulate that the overwhelming majority of public finance support, and all funding for adaptation and for addressing loss and damage, is delivered in the form of grants to ensure that funding mechanisms do not increase the burden of unsustainable national debt in the Global South and mandate comprehensive debt cancellation to allow countries in the Global South to prioritize domestic resources for climate responses, including through the expansion of social support systems.

ACCESS TO FINANCE AND DECISION-MAKING

• Commit to improve access through simplified and harmonized access and approval procedures, including direct access for women, Indigenous Peoples, local communities, children, youth, workers, people with disabilities and other marginalized groups  to ensure that more financial resources are made available to affected communities and groups, and Indigenous Peoples, to use in a self-determined manner based on needs and priorities, including by setting provision targets.
• Mandate that climate finance delivery mechanisms, such as climate funds and implementing agencies, include Indigenous Peoples, social dialogue and community participation in climate finance governance to respect cultural rights, Indigenous Peoples’ Traditional Knowledge and practices, and local solutions. 

TRANSPARENCY AND MONITORING

• Commit to improving existing monitoring and evaluation frameworks and to developing indicators and reporting guidelines for tracking the impacts of climate finance investments and funded actions on human rights, including on Indigenous rights and labor rights.
• Collect and report gender-, age- and disability-disaggregated and intersectional data to track the amounts and types of funding to Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and other often marginalized and disenfranchised groups, including women and gender-diverse groups.