Adaptation Fund’s Environmental and Social Policy (ESP) was described as strong, exemplary safeguards to be followed by others in the Letter to the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change from John H. Knox, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the issue of human rights obligations relating to the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment.
In his letter sent to the 45th session of the SBSTA in May 2016, UN Special Rapporteur John Knox urged climate negotiators to ensure that a new climate financing mechanism accords with international human rights obligations, by incorporating strong social and environmental safeguards. The letter describes those obligations and explains how they may be translated into safeguards in the new mechanism, using illustrative examples from the safeguards of the Adaptation Fund: “The new mechanism established in article 6, paragraph 4 of the Paris Agreement should follow (and where possible, improve upon) the examples set by other climate mechanisms that have adopted strong safeguards, such as the Adaptation Fund.”
The letter can be found on the website of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). Please click here to view the original letter.