2009.09 Human Rights and Climate Change

Human Rights and Climate Change

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Notes on the United Nations Panel Discussion in the Human Rights Council Plenary

Katherine Carré
15 June 2009

In her opening remarks the Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Ms Kyung-wha Kang said the panel discussion was addressing one of the most pressing global challenges the world faced today.  High hopes were pinned on the negotiations for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which are expected to culminate at the Copenhagen Conference in December this year. She warned against the grave human rights consequences of a failure to take decisive action now.

The human rights perspective brings out the full extent of the impact of climate change on communities and individuals and is a necessary complement to the negotiations. Ms Kang referred to the study prepared by the Office of the High Commissioner analysing the relationship between human rights and climate change. As background information, the document (A/HCR/10/61 dated 15.1.09) is briefly summarized:

Climate change related impacts as set out in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports have a range of implications for the enjoyment of human rights. The study notes that all eco-systems will be affected, but it points out the striking injustice of the impact of climate change as it adversely affects communities and individuals of the poorer non-industrialized countries and island states who have contributed the least to the present crisis.  Since the industrial revolution two hundred years ago, the richer industrialized countries have been mainly responsible for man-made greenhouse gas emissions and global warming. The human rights approach underlines the need for international cooperation to share the unequal burden.

Sharing the burden in a just and equitable way lies at the heart of the UNFCCC negotiations by Parties committed to protecting the climate system in accordance with their “common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities.”

Changes in the world weather pattern due to global warming have already been observed in melting icecaps, higher sea levels and warmer water, increased frequency of heat waves, floods and drought and powerful tropical cyclones which are likely to increase in the future.

The UN human rights treaty bodies all recognize the intrinsic link between the environment and the realization of a range of human rights, such as the right to life, to adequate food and  safe drinking water, the right to the best attainable standard of health, the right to adequate housing as well as the right to self-determination  (the right for peoples to freely choose their political status and pursue their economic, social and cultural development- which would also be violated should small island states become unliveable [1].) All these rights are protected by International Covenants.

The study describes the most vulnerable segments of the population due to geography, poverty, gender, age, minority status and disability. Women are known to be more vulnerable than men in disaster situations, especially elderly women and girls. Children are likely to suffer greater health risks and malnutrition. The way of life of some indigenous peoples will be seriously threatened.

Displacement has been cited as the greatest single aspect of climate change, whether caused by a major disaster or by gradual deterioration of living conditions such as desertification. Displacement is expected to occur primarily within national boundaries, says the report.

Climate change could be a major challenge to peace and security as competition for scarce resources could lead to violent conflicts. .

Mitigation and adaptation are the two main response strategies: mitigation to reduce emission levels of greenhouse gases and adaptation to strengthen the capacity of societies and ecosystems to cope with climate change, the financing of which is central to the negotiations. But efforts to mitigate or to adapt to climate change should not result in the curbing of human rights as has been the case recently when the right to food suffered from the rush on bio-fuels making food prices soar. (“The stomach of the poor against the fuel tanks of the rich”, as Amartya Sen put it somewhere.)

The last section of the study concerns the relevant human rights obligations. The study underlines that governments have specific obligations under international human rights law to protect individuals whose rights are affected either by the physical impact of climate change, such as sea level rise and extreme weather events, or by policies and measures to address climate change. The legal aspects appear quite complicated as:

“The physical impacts of global warming cannot easily be classified as human right violations, not least because climate change-related harm often cannot clearly be attributed to acts or omissions of specific States. Yet, addressing that harm remains a critical human rights concern and obligation under international law.…”
 
More detailed studies and data collection are required at the national level to assess the impact of climate change and the measures and policies to address its adverse effects. Further studies on protection mechanisms for persons displaced by climate change within and across national borders are also needed.

The study concludes that “Global warming can only be dealt with through cooperation by all members of the international community. Equally, international assistance is required to ensure sustainable development pathways in developing countries and enable them to adapt to now unavoidable climate change. International human rights law complements the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change by underlining that international cooperation is not only expedient but also a human rights obligation and that its central objective is the realization of human rights.”


The legal intricacies of human rights law and international agreements are best left to the lawyers. Mr. Feng Gao, Director for Legal Affairs from the UNFCCC Secretariat and two of the panellists, Mr John H. Knox, Professor of Law, Wake Forest University and Mr. D. Shabalala, Managing Attorney, Geneva Office of the Centre for International Environment Law spoke on this aspect.


Two Panellists

Dr Atiq Rahman, Executive Director of Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies and Winner of The Environment Award ‘Champion of the Earth 2008’ spoke with great fervour on the “Implications of Anthropogenic Climate Change on Human rights”.

For Dr Rahman, climate change has emerged as the greatest threat facing humankind today with significant human rights implications. All fundamental human rights and basic securities including the right to life, food and safe water, health, home, land, employment, property, livelihoods and development are likely to be undermined. Climate change will affect all eco-systems and societies but with very different effects depending on their location, economic status, history of development and governance patterns.

The most negative impacts will fall on the poor and most vulnerable developing countries. The poor will be the most subject to extreme events such as frequent floods, cyclones, tidal surges, salinity intrusion, sea level rise and drought.  

Climate change would increase global poverty and human insecurity as regards food, water, health, energy, shelter and social securities and would enhance regional disparity and violate basic human rights unless urgent action is undertaken NOW by all governments and the global community.

The rise in sea level and associated risks brought about climate change may displace over 200 million persons in the near future. This will increase the number of climate refugees especially from small island states, the low lying deltas and elsewhere in the underdeveloped world which will in turn lead to migration from rural to urban areas and to international migration.

The internally and externally displaced people will create political instability and new socio-economic problems in many parts of the world. Millions of poor already live in the slums of cities in Asia, Africa and Latin America without employment or adequate food and clean water, shelter, and basic amenities. The extremes of climate will push millions more to the city slums thus violating their rights to food and right to development.

Climate change will hit many of us in many places and those who will be displaced must have somewhere to go, in particular to those countries that were responsible for the initial period of climate change. So there is a right to migrate. Being outcast is a global process, so migration must be a global process - as global citizens we have the right to demand equity, fairness and rights according to the UNFCCC.

Dr Rahman told a few stories illustrating the injustices of the situation giving an example of tragedies which have taken place recently in Bangladesh where the impact of climate change is not for tomorrow, it is NOW. He added that we live in an unjust world and climate change will make it still more unjust. Consumption, the wrong type of consumption, is the driving force behind climate change.

Raquel Rolnik, the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living spoke on the impact of climate change with special reference to her mandate.
 
Some of the ideas she expressed were those of a geographer, Mike Davis [2] who has written on climate change and urban issues. Climate change is already here – there are many signs of its effect - and is threatening to intensify in the coming years. Even the Geographical Society of London has the view that after a long period of stability during the Holocene epoch, since the industrial revolution and ensuing population migration to urban centres, we have been moving into a new period, the Anthropocene era, marked by instability caused by human activity. This is not a threat to the Earth which has survived many cataclysms in the course of its long history, it is the survival of human kind which is threatened.

Ms. Rolnik used the biblical metaphor of Noah’s Ark—who will build the Ark and the second question, more important than the first, who will have access to it?

The scenario for the next decades is one of great population pressure on cities likely to become mega slums especially in the less developed world. Hundreds of millions urban dwellers in low and middle income nations as well as poor sections of the rich nations are at risk from the direct and indirect impact of climate change. Around one billion people live in precarious and overcrowded housing in slums or informal urban settlements, often located on sites at risk from flooding and landslides. The poorest, those usually located in the most hazard-prone sites, lack the basic infrastructure and services to protect them in case of an environmental disaster. People driven from their land by advancing deserts or failing agriculture will migrate to urban centres adding further to the pressure on living conditions.  Rising sea levels will also cause the half million people living in small island states to emigrate.

In terms of human rights, what should be the response to climate change, a global question which needs a global answer, is solidarity or the self-interest of a small class going to dominate? The Universal Declaration on Human Rights is a commitment to address all humankind and not just a few. Green–gated communities cannot be a reaction. The direction should be not only mitigation and adaptation which are highly necessary, but also immediate investment in infrastructure in developing countries and assisted migration. All measures should be taken not for the people, but with the people concerned.

Ms Rolnik as Special Rapporteur on adequate housing is due to attend a meeting with other concerned special mandate holders, on the right to food, health and on displaced persons and indigenous peoples amongst others so as to develop an integrated approach climate change.

Conclusions

Many states and a few NGOs expressed their views. Agreement emerged emphasizing that the full enjoyment of human rights by all will be threatened by climate change and that it was  absolutely necessary for the human rights perspective to be included in the Copenhagen negotiations.

The planet needed to unite against climate change. Its consequences on human rights was one of the most urgent problems facing humankind today, yet the discussion today was avoiding the issue of the unsustainable nature of production in developed countries. There was a need for greater political will on the part of those actually causing environmental degradation; they should live up to their commitments with regards to aid in order to ensure the sustainable development of countries in the South.

The links between human rights and climate change need to be investigated further and the legal implications need to be explored as it was new territory. As regards establishing a completely new convention to address climate change,
Dr Rahman said that this idea did not seem to be getting much support, therefore it seemed that building on existing human rights mechanisms might the best solution.

KC 2.8.09

FOOTNOTES

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(1) Several feel threatened: Maldives which sponsored the Panel, Timor Leste and the Pacific Small Island Developing States of Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Island, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanautu.

(2) Planet of Slums by Mike Davis, Verso