Événement Conférence
The Imperative of Defossilizing our Economies – A Conversation on transformative practices with the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Climate Change
30 Sep 2025
18:00
Lieu: International Environment House I | Room 3 & Online | Webex
Organisation: UN University Centre for Policy Research, Procédures spéciales du Conseil des droits de l’homme
By weaving together local innovations, academic perspectives, and international policy discussions, this dialogue explored how transformative practices can inspire action across sectors and scales, and how they might inform global governance in the lead-up to COP30.
About this Event
As the world accelerates its transition to renewable energy, a critical challenge is to ensure that this transformation not only avoids harm but actively generates solutions for a just and rights-based future. The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Climate Change, Elisa Morgera, presented insights from her report on The Imperative of Defossilizing our Economies (A/HRC/59/42), highlighting pathways for a global fossil-fuel phase out.
Building on these findings, the event explored promising practices and forward-looking solutions that could support phaseout action immediately at all levels. In particular, the conversation focused on bottom-up and subnational initiatives with a view to exploring transformative approaches and ways to ensure that transferable learning from these initiatives can be meaningfully shared across levels of governance and knowledge systems. These examples provide concrete entry points for imagining what just transitions can look like in practice.
By weaving together local innovations, academic perspectives, and international policy discussions, this dialogue explored how transformative practices can inspire action across sectors and scales, and how they might inform global governance in the lead-up to COP30.
Speakers
Elisa MORGERA
UN Special Rapporteur on climate change and human rights
Madeleine HAMEL
Project Lead – Science & Technology, UN University Centre for Policy Research
Sean McCABE
Head, Climate Justice & Sustainability, Bohemian FC
Kira ERWIN
Monitoring Evaluation Research and Learning Campaigner, groundWork
Sogen MOODLEY
Durban Coalition Secretariat
Thalia ERWIN
Durban Coalition Secretariat
Joanna ZEIGLER
Staff Attorney, Our Children's Trust
Angel Gabriel CABRERA SILVA
Assistant Professor on International Law and Human Rights, University of Washington, Tacoma
Lucero IBARRA
Director, Center for Research and Teaching in Economics
Highlights
Video
Live from International Environment House
Links
- A/HRC/59/42 | The Imperative of Defossilizing our Economies
- Human Rights, Climate Change, and the Role of Geneva | GEN