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GI-ESCR Advances Tax Justice and Rights-Based Just Transition Demands at SB64

GI-ESCR Advances Tax Justice and Rights-Based Just Transition Demands at SB64

From 8 to 18 June, GI-ESCR participated in the 64th sessions of the UNFCCC Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) and Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) in Bonn, Germany. The activity aimed to build advocacy capacity within the climate justice movement, strengthen coordination with broader civil society and influence policy processes within the negotiation tracks at SB64.

 

Putting Tax Justice on the Climate Finance Agenda

On climate finance, GI-ESCR aimed to introduce fiscal policies and cooperation on fiscal matters as tools necessary to gather public revenue and comply with climate finance commitments under the Paris Agreement. To do so, it engaged in the Veredas Dialogue’s discussions on nationally determined approaches and the international dimensions of implementing Article 2(1)(c) of the Paris Agreement, as well as its complementarity with Article 9.

The advocacy efforts related to climate finance were directed at negotiating States within the UNFCCC, civil society organisations and the climate justice movement. Negotiating States are the primary decision-makers within the UNFCCC process. They hold the authority to adopt resolutions, shape negotiating text and determine the content and ambition of outcomes.

Civil society organisations and the broader climate justice movement were also relevant targets, since the connection between climate finance and tax justice remains underexplored by States and civil society actors. Building shared analysis and coordinated messaging across the movement is a prerequisite for shifting the terms of the broader policy debate, especially in a space where civil society coalesces among constituencies. A stronger civil society voice on fiscal policy within the UNFCCC can, in turn, increase pressure on States.

GI-ESCR contributed to discussions within the Veredas Dialogue by foregrounding fiscal policy and the UN Tax Convention process as concrete tools for meeting climate finance obligations under Article 2(1)(c) of the Paris Agreement. The immediate objective was to introduce fiscal policy and international tax cooperation, including the UN Tax Convention process, within these discussions. By foregrounding that approximately USD 492 billion per year is lost to global tax abuse, the organisation aimed to reframe the climate finance gap as a matter of political will rather than resource scarcity and to build pressure for explicit mandates to utilise fiscal policy and cooperation as means to comply with climate finance commitments under the NCQG.

On climate finance, GI-ESCR partnered with REDFIS, the ‘Red Latinoamericana y Caribeña por un Sistema Financiero Sostenible’, to engage in the Veredas Dialogue. t also co-organised ‘From Scarcity to Abundance: How Tax Justice Measures Can Deliver Public Climate Finance at Scale’, a side event on the relevance of tax justice to the UNFCCC process, alongside Oxfam, Global Witness, Stamp Out Poverty, War on Want, Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung and Heinrich Böll Stiftung. The event focused on how tax justice measures can help deliver public climate finance at the scale required.

GI-ESCR also participated in ‘Reforming the International Financial Architecture for Climate’ on 15 June. The side event explored how COP30 finance outcomes, including the Veredas Dialogue on Article 2.1.c, can advance international financial architecture reform while improving the quality of finance and supporting just transitions across increasingly interconnected global agendas.

 

Advancing a Rights-Based Just Transition

On Just Transition, GI-ESCR aimed to influence negotiations under the Just Transition Work Programme, which is expected to develop key messages or principles based on the Dialogues connected to the climate weeks in Yeosu, South Korea, held in April, and Baku, Azerbaijan, scheduled for September.

GI-ESCR sought to influence the outcomes deriving from the Dialogues focused on food security, agriculture and oceans, and to ensure that the key messages included in this year's resolution are rights-based and gender-just. In addition, the Just Transition Work Programme, based on COP30's decision to develop a Just Transition Mechanism, is expected to advance the architecture, governance and functions of the new mechanism. The organisation therefore intended to influence the negotiations and draft text related to the mechanism.

The advocacy efforts related to just transition were mainly directed at negotiating States and the UNFCCC Secretariat. The Secretariat plays a part in the negotiating process by drafting initial texts for the resolutions to be adopted.

At SB64, negotiations addressed both the substantive outcomes of the Just Transition Work Programme Dialogues, including the Yeosu Dialogue on food security, agriculture and oceans, and the architecture, governance and functions of the prospective mechanism. GI-ESCR engaged to ensure that emerging text and key messages are grounded in human rights standards and gender justice principles, and that the mechanism's design is capable of advancing just transitions on the ground and reflects the needs and priorities of frontline communities.

 

Working Through Feminist and Civil Society Coalitions

On just transition, GI-ESCR’s primary institutional home for advocacy was the Women and Gender Constituency, of which the organisation is a member. In that space, GI-ESCR worked alongside fellow feminists to advance shared advocacy priorities in the Just Transition Work Programme negotiations.

The organisation engaged directly in the negotiations through the Women and Gender Constituency, drafting interventions for delivery in contact groups and contributing to the drafting of advocacy positions, including a draft text for the resolution on the establishment of the mechanism and draft key messages deriving from the Yeosu Dialogue on food systems.

GI-ESCR brought legal and human rights analysis to bear on the emerging text for the Just Transition Mechanism, advocating for rights-based governance architecture. It also contributed to corridor diplomacy and bilateral engagements and helped mobilise the joint civil society action on 17 June that applied final pressure on the just transition negotiations.

At the opening plenary, GI-ESCR’s Programme Officer on Climate and Environmental Justice, Maggie Rochi, delivered the Women and Gender Constituency's opening statement. Speaking on behalf of the constituency, she called for feminist climate justice, the safeguarding of progressive language, resistance to regression on hard-won commitments and the fulfilment of ICJ-affirmed legal obligations, including the obligation for developed countries to provide climate finance. She also called for the establishment of the Belém mechanism, the second phase of the Just Transition Work Programme and the effective implementation of the Belém Gender Action Plan, while urging governments and institutions to adopt a gender-transformative approach to ACE and ensure that the Global Goal on Adaptation reflects the lived realities and needs of women.

 

Watch Maggie’s statement here.

 

Progress and Next Steps

GI-ESCR engaged to advance the development of a Just Transition Mechanism with a strong framework to enhance international cooperation, technology transfers and enable transition pathways grounded in human rights and gender equality. The engagement aimed to influence the institutional architecture, functions and participation within the mechanism so that it is capable of supporting implementation at the national level.

SB64 fell short of the progress sought, with States stalling on the Terms of Reference for the review of the Just Transition Work Programme. However, a last-minute addition to the draft conclusions, paragraph 10 of the Draft conclusions proposed by the Chairs, secured the possibility of intersessional work prior to COP31, creating a critical window to advance technical and political work towards the establishment of the mechanism.

GI-ESCR also contributed to ensuring key messages from the Yeosu Dialogue on food and agriculture reflect a rights-based, gender-just and care-centred approach to continue building a genuinely just transition framework within the Just Transition Work Programme.

Across both tracks, the organisation's engagement sought to contribute to stronger civil society coordination and a unified movement voice for sustained advocacy within the UNFCCC. It also sought to ensure that the design of the Just Transition Mechanism reflects the needs and priorities of frontline communities and to support the use of fiscal policy and international tax cooperation as tools to gather public revenue and comply with climate finance commitments under the Paris Agreement.

 

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Climate and Environmental Justice

We have advanced rights-based and gender-transformative transition frameworks through research that centres the lived experiences of women and marginalised communities on the frontlines of extractive energy policies, promoting climate and energy frameworks attentive to the social and care-related impacts of transition pathways. We have developed a clear vision for a gender-just transition, firmly rooted in gender and human rights norms, establishing both the legal basis and the direction for the transformative changes our planet and societies urgently need. In particular, the ‘Guiding Principles for Gender Equality and Human Rights in the Energy Transition’, a collective effort built through online consultations, an in-person workshop and multiple rounds of revision with activists, practitioners and experts from around the world, outline a transformative vision for reshaping global energy systems through a human rights and gender equality lens.

Our work recognises that the climate emergency is both an existential threat and an opportunity to reimagine societies built on social, gender, economic and environmental justice. We ground our advocacy in feminist and intersectional principles, prioritising the agency and perspectives of communities in the Global South who have contributed the least to the climate emergency yet face its most devastating consequences. Central to our approach is the understanding that energy is not merely a commodity but a fundamental human right; essential for dignity, health, education, work and the realisation of countless other rights. We challenge approaches to the energy transition that risk replicating the harmful patterns of fossil fuel extraction and, instead, advocate for transformative policies that ensure human rights and gender equality as central to building climate-resilient societies rooted in dignity, justice and planetary well-being.

What's next?

We will continue to challenge approaches that treat energy transition as merely a technical shift, instead positioning it as an opportunity to reimagine economies and societies rooted in dignity for all, with particular attention to communities in the Global South who have contributed least to the climate emergency yet are most exposed to its worst effects.

We will connect community-level evidence and the lived experiences of those on the frontlines of extractive policies to national reform and global norm-setting, breaking down silos between human rights, gender, and climate movements, and advancing a shared vision that recognises just transitions as not only fundamental to achieving climate-resilient and sustainable societies, but as transformative pathways that advance social and gender equality, redistribute power and resources equitably, and ensure that energy systems serve the public good rather than profit.

We will mainstream rights-based and genderjust transition priorities in key multilateral spaces (particularly, within the Just Transition Work Programme and the to-be-developed Just Transition Mechanism, within the UNFCCC) to guarantee that just transitions are advanced at all levels.

We will also translate our work, through strategic advocacy, into at least two concrete policy wins, whether promoted, adopted, implemented, or scaled, in priority countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Colombia, South Africa, or Kenya), ensuring these policies align with human rights standards, centre gender equality, and reflect the needs and views of affected communities.

We will build momentum for the progressive recognition of the right to sustainable energy to shift dominant narratives away from purely extractive solutions that sideline gendered impacts, community participation, and Global South perspectives.

Economic Justice and Climate Finance

Our work has transformed the global discussion on fiscal policy in a more just, emancipatory and sustainable direction. Our approach has combined both high-level, expert contributions within decisionmaking circles, with bold, impactful work on narrative change with the general public.

We have been instrumental in the inclusion of human rights as a guiding principle of the future United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation, a multilateral instrument with the potential of raising approx. USD 492 billion per year in public revenues currently foregone to global tax abuse. In the process leading to the ‘Compromiso de Sevilla’ decided at FfD4, we proposed and succeeded in creating a specific human rights workstream within the Civil Society Financing for Development Mechanism, which was critical to ensure that explicit commitments on the matter were included in the negotiating outcome. In a context of cutbacks in multilateral institutions, we have amplified the capacities of technical experts, providing rigorous technical support and leveraging our influence to ensure the enactments of groundbreaking standard-setting instruments, such as the 2025 UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Statement on Fiscal Policy and Human Rights, and the first ex oficio hearing on the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights on Fiscal and Economic Policies to Address Poverty and Structural Inequality, leading to an upcoming thematic resolution on the matter. We have also bridged the silos between multilateral tax discussions and climate finance debates, promoting ambitious financing commitments to increase international and domestic resource mobilisation during COP 28, 29 and 30.

At the regional level, our engagement with fiscal cooperation platforms such as the Platform for Fiscal Cooperation of Latin America and the Caribbean (PTLAC), where we are member of its Civil Society Consultative Council, and the African Anti-IFFs Policy Tracker, for which we participated in the pilot mission in Ivory Coast together with Tax Justice Network Africa (TJNA), have been critical in cementing a growing engagement between tax administrations and ministries of finance with international legal experts, exploring actionable and transformative initiatives, such as the taxation of high-net-worth individuals, beneficial ownership registries and corporate countryby-country reports, to be implemented at the international level.

At the local level, our interventions in fiscal reform debates in Chile, Brazil, Colombia and Nigeria have contributed to shaping legislative outcomes in a more progressive, rights-compliant direction.

As for our leadership in narrative change, we have a measurable track record in delivering tailored, innovative campaigns which have decisively expanded economic justice constituencies by appealing to a broader tent. In Latin America and the Caribbean, we created the ‘Date Cuenta’ campaign, coordinating over 40 organisations across civil society to deliver plain language, innovative messaging connecting progressive fiscal reforms to the financing of health, education and social protection. ‘Date Cuenta’ generated over 55 original campaign messages that were tailored to the realities of seven priority countries (Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Honduras) and disseminated in Spanish, Portuguese and English. In doing so, we convened more than 65 online co-creation workshops with partners, coordinating a unified communications strategy which combined digital outreach, press and media coverage, and collaboration with influencers. Ultimately, ‘Date Cuenta’ resulted in more than 60,000 interactions on social media, coverage in major regional and international media outlets, including El País, Deutsche Welle, Bloomberg and France 24, and the participation of at least 63 social media influencers through 58 dedicated publications. In collaboration with Fundación Gabo and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, we also organised a two-day workshop in Bogota with 20 journalists from 13 countries, building a regional network trained in a human rights-based approach to fiscal policy that has since generated published media coverage on outlets such as La Diaria, Ciper, El Diario Ar and Milenio. Through ‘Date Cuenta’ and our regional advocacy, we strengthened civil society engagement in key processes, including the Financing for Development track and FfD4, co-organised highlevel dialogues with states and civil society from Latin America and Africa.

What's next?

We will shape the UN Tax Convention and its Protocols so they embed human rights principles, and we will stay engaged through follow-up processes (including the expected Conference of the Parties) to support effective implementation. We will keep linking tax and climate finance so that new resources mobilised through fiscal cooperation are channelled to adaptation, mitigation, and loss and damage, in line with UNFCCC commitments.

Public Services for Care Societies

We have translated participatory research into accountability and policy outcomes.

In Ivory Coast, our work with Mouvement Ivoirien des Droits Humains and affected communities since 2023 exposed how privatisation and lack of accountability restrict access to quality healthcare. It contributed to the closure of 1,022 illegal private health centres, an executive instrument strengthening the regulation of private hospitals across the country, and the creation of a permanent complaints management committee in healthcare through a bylaw issued by the prefect of Gagnoa. Partners engaged through this process also advanced concrete improvements at facility level: members of the Gagnoa Midwives Association who took part in the participatory action research pooled resources to renovate the neonatal unit of the Regional Hospital, and the Director of the Gagnoa General Hospital launched an action plan to expand services and improve patient reception, with the facility receiving the award for best hospital in the country in 2025.

In Kenya, our research with the Mathare Education Taskforce documented the absence of public schools and the expansion of private provision, evidencing impacts on households and caregivers and strengthening demands for free, quality public education. This work contributed to stronger community agency and collective organisation, alongside ongoing strategies ranging from communications to litigation to secure a public school in the area, some involving GI-ESCR and others led independently.

Across Africa, this work is complemented by a multi-country study examining the human rights implications of austerity in education and health, including how regressive fiscal policies, rising debt burdens and persistent underinvestment undermine the financing and delivery of public services.

In Latin America, from 29 November to 2 December 2021, over a thousand representatives from over one hundred countries, from grassroots movements, advocacy, human rights, and development organisations, feminist movements, trade unions, and other civil society organisations, met in Santiago, Chile, and virtually, to discuss the critical role of public services for our future. Following the meeting, the Santiago Declaration on Public Services was adopted to demand universal access to quality, gender-transformative and equitable public services as the foundation of a fair and just society.

We are currently advancing work on care systems, linking public services and fiscal justice through integrated research, advocacy and communications, including a regional campaign framing care as a collective responsibility requiring sustained public investment.

What's next?

In Ivory Coast, we will evaluate and strengthen the complaints management committee and position it as a replicable model for other health facilities. In Kenya, we will support the Mathare community to co-design a model public school for Mabatini and Ngei wards, grounded in human rights standards. Building on our multi-country austerity study, we will drive national advocacy on financing for education and health: advancing reforms in Ghana; launching a fiscal policy and public services financing agenda in Kenya through the CESCR process and targeted coalition work; and, in Nigeria, using the new tax acts in force since 1 January 2026 to catalyse a national accountability campaign for adequately funded, quality public services. In Latin America, we will amplify locally led care pilots across 8 countries and turn lessons into influence—advancing care policies that strengthen care organisations, protect care workers’ rights, support unpaid caregivers, include disability and family networks, and redistribute care more equitably.