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We Welcome REDESCA’s Call to Integrate Climate Financing and Tax Justice at COP30
The Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (GI-ESCR) applauds the statement of the Office of the Special Rapporteur on Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights (REDESCA) of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which underscores the inextricable link between climate finance, tax justice and human rights in the run-up to the COP30 climate summit.
Read the statement here.
In the statement, REDESCA urges that discussions on climate finance at COP30 cannot be treated in isolation from broader questions of fiscal justice, tax governance and the redistribution of wealth and resources. It highlights that the architecture for mobilising and delivering climate finance must be grounded in transparency, redistribution and rights-based approaches.
The following key messages in REDESCA’s statement, aligned with the human rights framework, can be emphasised:
- Climate finance as a human rights imperative. Developing countries (and especially populations facing climate vulnerabilities) require financing not only for mitigation and adaptation but for the fulfilment of economic, social and cultural rights. The mobilisation of new financing must be aligned with rights obligations and not perpetuate inequality or debt burdens.
- Tax justice and fiscal space are central. REDESCA’s linking of the UN Tax Convention with COP30 signals the importance of ensuring that tax systems in the Global South secure domestic resources, curb illicit financial flows, hold multinational corporations accountable and allow for redistributive fiscal policies that expand social protections, climate resilience and just transitions.
- Integration across policy silos. The statement underlines that climate financing, tax reform, debt relief and human rights must be tackled in an integrated manner. GI-ESCR underscores that climate financing should not just be about “mobilising dollars” but about transforming the fiscal architecture that shapes who pays, who benefits, and how rights are protected.
- From ambition to delivery. REDESCA’s intervention comes at a crucial moment: COP30 in Belém, Brazil presents an opportunity to operationalise the ambition for at least USD 1.3 trillion per year directed to developing countries by 2035 across public and private sources. But these two sources can have substantially different impacts. Without a rights-based and tax-justice lens, these numbers lack real meaning and risk omitting what real transformation should look like.
We welcome REDESCA’s assertive voice and call on States participating in COP30 and the UN Tax Convention negotiations to heed its message: climate finance must be grounded in justice, including fiscal, social, environmental and inter-generational dimensions.
These concerns echo what we highlighted earlier this week, when our Programme Officer on Economic Justice and Climate Finance, Ezequiel Steuermann, underlined at COP30 that climate finance must be sufficient, accessible and grounded in human rights so communities can adapt, mitigate and thrive. He pointed to the scale of resources already available for a just transition and explained that they are being lost through opaque and unfair tax systems. His intervention stressed that the UN Tax Convention creates a rare opening to address these losses, strengthen accountability and align global financing with human rights.
Watch Ezequiel Steuermann’s intervention here.
REDESCA’s message also aligns with the analysis in our publication ‘Boosting Ambition Through International Obligations: The Added Value of Integrating Human Rights to the Climate Financing Discussion’, which explains that climate finance is a legal duty grounded in international human rights law and that stronger normative obligations are needed to meet the scale of the climate emergency.
