This paper is part of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights' project, Ensuring the Right to Environmental Protection. This 2023 launched initiative examines pressing social and fundamental rights issues, legislative gaps, promising practices, and relevant policies related to climate change and the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Methodology
The paper draws from desk research on selected legislative files from the green transition or EU climate policy. The analysis revealed fragmented efforts to address fundamental rights impacts of climate change and limited integration of such rights into EU climate strategies. The research focused on how specific Green Deal measures explicitly reference rights and freedoms outlined in the Charter or broader principles under Article 6 of the TEU.
Content Overview
The paper examines the European Green Deal through a fundamental rights perspective, emphasizing the EU's commitment to a just transition and inclusive policies. It marks a first step to raising awareness about the relative absence of fundamental rights in EU climate policy and the need to mainstream fundamental rights in future climate legislative and policy files. It reflects how the systematic, explicit and comprehensive application of fundamental rights as part of a human-rights-based approach to climate policy could advance a just and inclusive transition. It identifies a lack of consistent focus on fundamental rights in EU climate policies and advocates for their systematic incorporation to support an equitable and inclusive green transition.
It outlines an overview of Member States and EU institutions' relevant and applicable fundamental rights obligations as they implement the Green Deal. Consistent with the Commission's communication on the Green Deal and explores how these obligations can be leveraged to ensure cohesive policymaking. This aligns with the European Commission's vision for the Green Deal to leverage tools like regulation, standardization, investment, and international cooperation.
Structure
- First section: Outlines the elements of a hypothetical human-rights-based approach to the Green Deal.
- Second section: Discusses the EU's and international human rights obligations to ensure a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment.
- Third section: Outlines an overview of the elements of the Green Deal with potential implications for social rights, particularly for the EU funds, the EPSR, specific action to tackle energy poverty and the EU environment programme to 2030.
- Fourth section: Discusses challenges and risks if fundamental rights are not explicitly taken on board in the implementation of the Green Deal.
- Ways forward: Proposes preliminary suggestions on how a human rights-based approach can be developed and fundamental rights strengthened in the EU's green transition.
