At the 2023 Commonwealth Sustainable Energy Forum, Dr Shavana Haythornthwaite, Head of the Commonwealth Secretariat’s Human Rights Unit, highlighted the importance of integrating human rights into the transition to renewable energy. In this blog, she delves into the challenges and opportunities associated with this integration, shedding light on its significance.
The climate crisis and its far-reaching impacts on humans and ecosystems require an effective and progressive response. The transition to renewable energy is a crucial component of this response, offering a pathway to achieve net-zero emissions. However, as the renewable energy sector rapidly expands, it is imperative to ensure that human rights are taken into account.
Threat to human rights
While the transition to renewables has delivered climate-related benefits and can empower indigenous peoples and local communities, it also poses significant risks to human rights. Indigenous peoples are disproportionately impacted as much of the world’s non-commercially exploited land and sources of renewable energy are found in or around their territories.
The renewable energy sector is associated with various human rights violations, including land-grabbing, forced displacement, child labour, poor working conditions, restrictions on collective bargaining and workplace organizing, increased inequality, adverse effects on food, health and water resources, loss of self-determination for indigenous peoples, and the destruction of sacred sites.
Between 2010 and 2020, the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre recorded more than 200 allegations of adverse human rights impacts linked to renewable energy projects, with 44 per cent attributed to the wind and solar sectors.
Implications for governments and the private sector
In addition to the harmful effects on people, there are also considerable implications for governments and the private sector in overlooking human rights in energy transition projects. Failure to account for human rights can lead to community opposition, protests, negative media coverage, litigation and investor pressure.
These repercussions present significant operational, financial, legal and reputational risks for governments and the private sector, such as project delays or cancellation, diminished returns on investment, additional costs, policy failures and a loss of legitimacy among affected communities. It is therefore critical for all stakeholders to prioritise human rights in their energy transition efforts.
Taking a human rights-based approach
Sustainable development and environmental protection should be anchored in human rights-based approaches. These approaches are grounded in international human rights law and ensure participation, equality, non-discrimination, transparency and accountability.
International human rights norms, which are complemented and reinforced by a number of other treaties, agreements, United Nations declarations, and international principles and guidelines, should also guide human rights-based approaches to just energy transitions.
Not only are human rights-based approaches necessary to prevent adverse impacts on individuals, indigenous peoples and local communities, but they also yield clear benefits for policymakers and the private sector, and serve as effective risk mitigation tools that improve development outcomes.
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Community engagement for a just transition
Meaningful community engagement is essential to generate community support for renewable energy projects and ensure a just transition. Engagement should be accessible to all community members, non-discriminatory, contextually and culturally appropriate, and gender sensitive. Crucially, community engagement must adhere to the principles of free, prior and informed consent as set out in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Amongst the potential outcomes of community engagement is agreement on benefit-sharing strategies. Benefit sharing is not just compensatory, rather it is rooted in the needs and circumstances of the local community, mutually beneficial and leaves a lasting positive impact. It can take a variety of forms, including community benefit programmes, such as local infrastructure development and building community centres, local job creation and procurement, community co-ownership structures and local institutional capacity-building initiatives.
Steps towards a just transition
To achieve strong human rights and development outcomes for communities and ensure a just transition to renewable energy, several multifaceted steps must be taken.
First, the immediacy of acting must be recognised before poor practices and adverse human rights impacts become entrenched. Second, governments should establish robust legislative and policy frameworks that promote and protect human rights. Third, human rights standards should be explicitly integrated into renewable energy policies, and human rights impact assessment must be conducted.
Fourth, early, continuous and meaningful engagement with affected communities and indigenous people should be facilitated. Fifth, gender considerations should be incorporated throughout all stages of project development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation to ensure equitable outcomes. Sixth, effective grievance processes and access to remedies should be ensured. Finally, contextualised benefit-sharing strategies should be encouraged.
As the sustainable energy transition accelerates, there is a critical opportunity for Commonwealth countries to shape the processes and embed human rights in the race towards achieving net-zero emissions. It is only by placing human rights at the centre of the transition to renewable energy that it will be just for everyone in the Commonwealth.
Media contact
- Snober Abbasi Senior Communications Officer, Communications Division, Commonwealth Secretariat
- T: +442077476168 | E-mail
