For cost-effective climate action, the UK should protect rights defenders
Many of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable communities were left outraged following last week’s COP29 summit, with accusations of betrayal by rich countries’ failure to commit meaningful sums for urgent climate finance. But within the acrimonious discussions, the UK emerged as a serious negotiator and advocate for climate action which it seeks to advance at next year’s crucial COP30 in Brazil. The British government could maximise their impact by investing in rights defenders - the unsung individuals and communities who are often the first to sound the alarm whenever environmental degradation is threatened.
Often in remote areas and standing in the way of powerful corporate interests, corrupt authorities and armed groups, the work of rights defenders goes hand in hand with a just energy transition. Yet, though protecting them costs a fraction of the dizzying sums debated at COP29, they remain perpetually under-resourced by their governments and the international community, while their bravery is increasingly paid for with their lives. For a cost-effective but powerful aid policy, the UK should stand by them and encourage other donors to join in.
In Colombia there were 79 documented murders of environmental defenders in 2023. Activists resisting illegal mining, logging and oil extraction in the Amazon are subject to intimidation and assassination, leaving one of the most biodiverse areas on the planet at the mercy of exploitation. More than a hundred other activists were killed across seventeen different countries in the same year, with countless more harassed, imprisoned and disappeared. The escalating violence signals a growing impunity enjoyed by perpetrators, and risks harming environmental movements in the world’s most vulnerable areas.
Nearly half the environmental defenders killed last year were indigenous people, so it was encouraging to see the UK commit to meeting its £163m pledge towards a global fund for those communities at COP29. But the broader outlook is more troubling. This year’s Autumn Budget saw an effective £2bn cut to overseas aid, with a spending target of 0.7% of Gross National Income (GNI) unlikely to be restored until 2030. This prompted a clamour of criticism from across the sector over the “short-sighted” decision. Bill Gates, of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, labelled it “a disappointing outcome for the world’s most vulnerable people.” The second Trump presidency is likely to see foreign aid cuts, with potentially grave consequences for human rights defenders and the climate as a whole.
Those who speak out against extractive industries have always faced violence, discrimination and threats but now the global race for lower emissions presents heightened risks for those living in areas considered strategic to the energy transition. But companies accused of impinging on human rights are not only harming the communities themselves, but risk derailing the wider transition. In recent years activists around the world have succeeded in halting controversial operations from bauxite mining in Jamaica, solar farms in Taiwan and wind energy projects in Mexico. Increasing unrest and litigation threats present incentives for good companies and governments to pursue responsible energy projects, but also encourages bad actors to silence or remove obstacles to their profit.
The new scramble for critical materials used in wind turbines, solar panels, and electric vehicles, which western consumers are proud to use, creates incentives for big business and authoritarian governments to harvest them at any cost. Without oversight and accountability, the energy transition will fuel waves of poverty, injustice and environmental damage, ironically creating even more need for international aid at a time where budgets are constrained. Local rights defenders, operating in isolated landscapes, are the frontline actors who can ensure that our clean energy supply chains are not tainted by violence, forced displacement and pollution. British foreign policy can benefit from consulting their expertise and protecting their wellbeing.
In 2019, the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) outlined firm support for human rights defenders worldwide and pledged to provide in-country support, consult with them on projects and policy and create stronger global standards of protection. The new Labour government should update and capitalise its rights defenders policy to help prevent abuses occurring, rather than endlessly responding to escalating outrages.
Western governments are increasingly hostile toward people fleeing humanitarian crises and climate change, while overseeing aid cuts that fuel instability and displacement. The UK – now led by a former human rights lawyer – should not join this counterproductive race to the bottom. Labour’s victory was an antidote to a wave of authoritarian populist forces gaining prominence across Europe. While those governments may deprioritize or abandon rights protection, it is an opportunity for a post-Brexit Britain to take a bold stance and support the work of those on the forefront of defending democracy, the environment, and the rule of law. The EU’s approval of the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) earlier this year underscores how human rights compliant sustainable development is moving up the political agenda. By enacting a similar mandatory corporate due diligence law, the UK can strengthen prevention of attacks against environmental human rights defenders and provide them with an avenue to seek redress.
Defending human rights should not be a risky, or even deadly, endeavour. We all have a stake in the preservation of our environment, and activists living in resource-rich areas are the first line of defence against environmental crime. Communities on the ground must have a role in shaping a just energy transition and the UK can assist them to prevent fuelling new cycles of socio-economic injustice in the Global South. This is an impossible task for any one donor to take on alone, so we invite the UK and others to join us in helping to redesign and invest in a protection system fit for defending those fighting the climate crisis at the local level.
Sharan Srinivas is Director of Protecting Rights Defenders at the world’s largest human rights donor, the Open Society Foundations.
