Climate talks: anger over removal of human rights reference from final draft

US, UK and others accused of 'cynical' ploy in response to developing countries' firm stance on holding rich nations accountable for climate change damage

Strongly held positions are frequently traded away or dropped by governments out of necessity in the last hours of international negotiations. But the removal of all reference to human rights in the final draft of the Paris climate agreement has dismayed leaders of nearly all the myriad civil society groups pressing for a strong outcome.

According to observers, Britain, Norway, the US and a small group of developed countries actively blocked inclusion of any mention of human rights in the text in retaliation for developing countries' refusal to give ground on a part of the text called "loss and damage". This holds rich countries accountable for irreversible damage done by climate change.