Human rights and climate change

It is now evident that the effects of climate change are not merely projections of what might happen in some distant future. As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) empirically documents, climate change is already affecting the lives and livelihoods of individuals and communities across the globe. Moreover, our action today and over the next years will be of crucial importance to avert irreversible climate change of catastrophic dimensions and its impact for human rights protection.

As the effects of global warming become more real and tangible, we are witnessing a new and growing interest in the human dimensions of climate change. One reflection of this new perspective is an increasing recognition that climate change will have direct implications for human rights.

Last year, the United Nations Human Rights Council, the principal inter-governmental body of the United Nations responsible for the promotion and protection of human rights, expressed concern “that climate change poses an immediate and far-reaching threat to people and communities around the world and has implications for the full enjoyment of human rights”. It also mandated my Office to conduct an analytical study on the relationship between human rights and climate change (HRC resolution 7/23 “human rights and climate change”).

The OHCHR study was recently finalized and the Human Rights Council will consider the report and debate the issue in March 2009. The Council has decided to make available the OHCHR study together with a summary of the debate held during its March session to the Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at the 2009 World Climate Conference in Copenhagen.

The consultative process which has guided the preparation of the OHCHR study, brought together a wealth of contributions from States, United Nations organizations, national human rights institutions and non-governmental organizations and research institutions on the human rights implications of climate change. The interest in the issue was also evident at a one-day consultation meeting held on 22 October 2008 attended by more than 150 participants.

The OHCHR study takes as its starting point the scientific consensus about the causes and effects of climate change presented in the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC. Apart from dispelling any remaining doubts about the reality of climate change, this report details a range of impacts on human societies, many of which are already being felt across the world.

The OHCHR study documents that climate change-related effects have serious implications for the enjoyment of human rights. For example, increasing food insecurity and extreme weather events, will place human rights related to life, food, water and health under additional strain.

Another important point made in the study is that, generally, the adverse effects of climate change on human rights are not a natural given, but can be mitigated through appropriate policy measures. Thus, vulnerability to climate change effects is often determined or aggravated by non-climatic factors, such as discrimination and unequal power relationships. This ‘political nature’ of the effects of climate change, further highlights the relevance of addressing and analysing climate change through a human rights lens.

As is well known, the poorest countries in the world, which have generally contributed the least to human-induced climate change, are set to be hit first and the hardest by global warming. Today, millions of people find themselves on the “front line” of climate change, living in places where even small climatic changes can have catastrophic consequences for lives and livelihoods. Vulnerability due to geography is compounded by a lack of resources to cope with the adverse effects of climate change. The same pattern is found within countries in all parts of the world where climate change-related effects exacerbate existing vulnerabilities related to factors such as poverty, age and gender.

While it is difficult to classify physical impacts of climate change as violations of international human rights law (not least because of the complex web of causal relationships linking specific climate change effects with greenhouse gas emissions of specific States), international human rights standards and guarantees provide important protection in the face of climate change-related effects. In principle, a State could under certain circumstances be liable under international human rights law for a failure, though acts or omissions, to protect individuals against climate change-related harm affecting the enjoyment of human rights.

Our study also points out how human rights standards and principles should inform and strengthen policy-making in the area of climate change and how human rights obligations of international assistance and cooperation complement and reinforce commitments made by States under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The United Nations Secretary-General has referred to 2009 as “the year of climate change” and high hopes and expectations are pinned on ongoing climate change negotiations and the outcome of the United Nations Climate Conference in Copenhagen. The scientific consensus on the seriousness of the threat caused by climate change and the increasing realization of its human dimensions must serve as a rallying cry for urgent and decisive global action.