Advancing the conversation around climate change and human rights
In June 2025 the University of Oxford is hosting a global summit on climate change and human rights in partnership with UN Human Rights, the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Alliance, the International Universities Climate Alliance, and co-host universities across the world.
A 24-hour global plenary
The cornerstone of the summit is a hybrid global event on World Environment Day, 5th of June 2025. We will bring together leading thinkers and practitioners at the intersection of climate change and human rights for a 24-hour global plenary, which will be broadcast live across time zones. Co-created and co-delivered by universities across the world, the plenary will follow the sun as we pass the baton between different regions.
View the Global Plenary Programme
In Partnership;
Featuring
UN Human Rights in conversation with the International Universities Climate Alliance
Understanding climate ambition as a human rights imperative – conversations facilitated by UN Human Rights and the International Universities Climate Alliance.
Online panels include:
(Check your local time) The session will explore how women, girls and persons with diverse gender identities, while being disproportionately affected by climate change, are crucial agents in addressing it. Panellists will discuss the contributions of women, girls and persons with diverse gender identities, including Indigenous women, girls and persons with diverse gender identities, to climate action. They will highlight the obligations of States to take adequate action to prevent, adapt to and remediate the adverse human rights impacts of environmental harm on women, girls and persons with diverse gender identities as well as to ensure their rights to access information, participation and access to justice and to protect environmental human rights defenders from these groups. They will also discuss how upholding gender equality enables more effective climate action and will explore how women, girls and persons with diverse gender identities can be better supported in their leadership in combating climate change.
(Check your local time) The session will discuss the critical need for ambition in mobilising enough finance to satisfy actual global needs for climate action, including with respect to mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage. It will highlight how such ambition is necessary in order to comply with human rights obligations. Drawing upon the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the panellists will also discuss the necessity of human rights safeguards in the context of climate finance.
(Check your local time) The session will address the key ways in which human rights should be integrated into NDCs, including participatory development, implementation and monitoring of NDCs, as well as how to reflect human rights in NDCs. The session will touch upon the key role of national human rights institutions (NHRIs) and rights-holders, including Indigenous Peoples, throughout the process. The panellists will also discuss how to ensure NDCs support a just transition.
The Himalayan University Consortium
Engaging Community, Science, and Decision makers in Human Rights-Based Climate Action – a Himalayan Experience. Learn more about the Himalayan University Consortium
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04:45-05:15 (UTC) (Check your local time)
The session will feature a four-way conversation between a community-based practitioner, a scientist, an Indigenous knowledge holder-cum-advocate, and a scientist-cum-policymaker from countries in the Hindu Kush Himalayas to reflect on what works and what doesn’t to ensure that climate action is informed by human rights, including the right to benefit from scientific progress and its applications and serves those most affected by climate change. It raises questions beyond access to information and the best available science and points. By pointing to the need to invert the construction of climate information through bottom-up, community-led knowledge co-production and solution co-design, the session seeks to emphasize the importance of anchoring science in society and the role of stakeholders in setting the research agenda. A genuine and productive partnership between the community, academia, and policymakers is key to ensure risk-informed decision-making for meaningful climate action.
Speakers:
Gitanjali J Angmo, Co-Founder, Himalayan Institute of Alternative (HIAL, Ladakh) | Sonam Wangchuk, Cryosphere Specialist, International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD, Bhutan) | Shohel Chandara Hajong, Indigenous data; Indigenous Peoples’ rights advocate and Indigenous data expert, Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact (Bangladesh) | Archana Shrestha, Deputy Director General, Department of Hydrology and Meteorology (DHM), Government of Nepal | Vanessa Carriedo, Senior Communication Officer, Regional Action and Global Advocacy, International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (Philippines).
The University of the West Indies
Caribbean youth perspectives on climate justice with the University of the West Indies. Hear from young people in the Caribbean about their perspectives of climate justice. Hosted by the The University of the West Indies (UWI) Global Institute for Climate Smart and Resilient Development (GICSRD)
- 17:00 - 17:45 (UTC) (Check your local time)
This session, moderated by Ms. Michelle Brathwaite, includes a conversation with four youth panellists from the Caribbean on the topic of Climate Justice. Speakers will share a message with the international/ global community.
Speakers:
Michelle Brathwaite, Regional Representative for the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) regional office in the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UN OHCHR) | Yolanda Dyer, Policy Analyst, Bermuda | Christina Gittens, Environmental Science Student, Barbados | Jean-Luc Constantine, Youth Advocate, St. Lucia | Deborah Bryan, Youth Advocate, Antigua and Barbuda | Dorain Clarke, Founder of Youth Climate Voice Caribbean, Jamaica.
