As the world gathers in Baku, Azerbaijan to attend the 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29) under the United Nations Framework Convention Climate Change (UNFCCC), Anti-Slavery International is joining the event to bring attention to the often-overlooked links between climate change and modern slavery.
This year’s COP agenda focuses on climate finance, adaptation, and crucially, just transition and loss and damage. These final two are central in our work to increase protections for people at risk of modern slavery due to the impacts of climate change.
Anti-Slavery International’s Climate Change Manager, Chiara Soletti, will participate as an observer in these discussions. Our focus will be to underline how climate-induced migration and mobility can increase vulnerability to forced labour, forced marriage and human trafficking. For Anti-Slavery International, it’s important to make sure that, as the UNFCCC parties pay an increasing amount of attention to “human mobility”, the heightened risk that people face to exploitation is also addressed. We will also be raising awareness of the human rights abuses that workers and communities face due to the growing demand for renewable energy. We need to secure a truly just transition across all industries, including energy, where people are not harmed in supply chains of renewable energies.
Anti-Slavery International’s goals at COP29
To address these overlapping issues, we at Anti-Slavery International have set clear objectives for COP29. We aim to incorporate protections for populations in vulnerable situations into climate action frameworks:
- Mainstreaming the links between climate change, and modern slavery: At COP29, we will advocate for migrants’ rights protections in the context of loss and damage, making sure that people in the countries most impacted by climate change are supported. We aim to address how climate change is affecting migration, intensifying risks of human rights violations, like forced labour, forced marriage and human trafficking, for populations made vulnerable by the impacts of climate change.
- Supporting a just transition: workers and communities around the world are being negatively affected due to the impact of climate change on industries. The world’s transition can only be “just” if the rights of all workers in sectors affected by climate change are respected. We are pushing for protections for migrant workers in sectors particularly vulnerable to climate change (such as agriculture, fishing, brick kilns, etc.) to be included in the Just Transition Work Programme.
- Including protections for migrant workers in climate-vulnerable sectors in the Programme will set the trajectory for countries to reduce risks of forced labour and trafficking of migrant workers at local and national levels.
- We also call for the Just Transition Work Programme (and all just transition policies) to ensure a just energy transition. This would secure protections for workers and communities working in, or living adjacent to, industries relating to transition minerals and renewable energy. This includes migrant workers, Uyghurs facing systemic state-imposed forced labour in renewable supply chains, and indigenous peoples.
- Strengthening climate adaptation and loss and damage financing: We are calling for financial commitments that address loss and damage in ways that account for the protection of people who are affected by climate change and pushed away from their homes, either temporarily or permanently. With an emphasis on financing for the Global South, we will advocate for policies that make sure that climate adaptation and loss and damage funding will support migrants, displaced populations, and immobile populations. Providing access to forms of direct finance will contribute to preventing migration-driven exploitation.
Why Anti-Slavery International’s presence matters at COP29
The growing attention that migration and mobility are receiving within the adaptation, loss and damage and just transition discussions at COP29 gives Anti-Slavery International a crucial platform to emphasise how climate-induced migration fuels forms of modern slavery. With the worsening of the climate breakdown, the data from the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shows that migration, displacement of people, and cases of immobile populations (those unable and unwilling to move due to economic, social, or physical constraints) are expected to become more frequent. The impact of climate change is also increasingly being felt by workers across various industries that are key to the green transition, such as transition minerals for renewable energy. Decision-makers need to scale up climate action that accounts for both mobile and immobile populations. It has never been more important to make sure that the risks of human rights violations (such as forced labour, forced marriage and human trafficking) are highlighted within climate policies at every level.
By advocating for a rights-based approach to adaptation and loss and damage financing, and for a truly “just transition,” we aim to protect people who have been made vulnerable to the risks of exploitation and modern slavery. Our goal, shared with many other civil society organisations, is to collaborate with people and communities’ resilience to climate impacts, moving towards a climate-resilient future where human rights are respected, and no one is left behind.
If you’re heading to COP and would like to discuss these critical issues, we’d love to connect and collaborate. Please do get in touch with Chiara Soletti (c.soletti@antislavery.org). Together, let’s advocate for a climate-resilient future that protects both people and the planet.
And if you’d like more insights on the intersection between climate impacts and modern slavery, visit our Climate Change and Modern Slavery Hub.