Empowering National Human Rights Institutions to Advance Rights-Based Climate Action 1 Introduction 1 and Background The world has never faced a human rights challenge as profound as climate change. The United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres in 2021 emphasised that climate change acts as a “crisis multiplier,” with serious implications for international peace and stability, affecting food security, natural resources, and migration patterns.1 For many communities, particularly those in island nations and less developed countries, the climate crisis is already an existential threat. Many of the fundamental rights, such as the rights to life, selfdetermination, development, food, health, housing, and access to water and sanitation, are facing serious threats. Similar to the rest of the world, countries in South Asia faces severe economic, social, and environmental challenges due to climate change. More than 200 million people in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka are at risk from melting Himalayan snow and rising sea levels.2 Climate uncertainty, combined with South Asia’s diverse geography, rich biodiversity, and complex socio-economic conditions, creates a web of interconnected risks for the region, including water scarcity, ecosystem degradation, noneconomic loss and damage, and human migration.3 South Asia is also one of the most vulnerable regions to climate shocks, experiencing a “new climate normal” with intensifying heat waves, cyclones, droughts, and floods.4 Over the past two decades, more than half of South Asia’s population—about 750 million people across eight countries—has been affected by climate-related disasters.5 This shifting climate could drastically worsen living conditions for up to 800 million people in a region already home to some of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable populations.6 South Asia also ranks among the most climate-vulnerable regions globally, with nearly 29 million people United Nations, ‘Climate Change “Biggest Threat Modern Humans Have Ever Faced”, World-Renowned Naturalist Tells Security Council, Calls for Greater Global Cooperation’, Meetings Coverage and Press Releases (2021) <https://press.un.org/en/2021/sc14445.doc.htm>. 1 Asian Development Bank, ‘Climate Change in South Asia: 12 Things to Know’ (2014) <https://www.adb.org/features/climate-change-south-asia-12-things-know>. 2 Relief Web, Building a Climate for Peace: Climate Security in South Asia, June 2024 (2024) <https://reliefweb.int/report/bangladesh/building-climate-peace-climate-security-south-asia-june-2024>. 3 The World Bank, ‘Climate and Development in South Asia’ (2024) <https://www.worldbank.org/en/region/sar/brief/integrating-climate-anddevelopment-in-south-asia/integrating-climate-and-development-in-south-asia-region>. 4 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid.