Transcript FAIRNESS AND RIGHTS IN CLIMATE ACTION: SHAPING AN

Protecting the Climate for People:
Human Rights and Climate Change
Dr Tara Shine, Special Adviser to the Mary Robinson
Foundation - Climate Justice
Law and the Environment 2015, UCC 23rd April 2015
Overview
1. How climate change undermines the enjoyment of
human rights
2. How climate actions can pose risks to human rights
3. How human rights obligations can inform more
effective climate action
4. What this means for the 2015 climate agreement and
the Post 2015 development agenda
1. How climate change undermines the enjoyment of
human rights
Climate change has implications for the full range of human rights, in
particular the rights of poor, vulnerable and marginalised people.
The Right to Food : Climate change is unjustly and disproportionality
affecting the food supplies of the most vulnerable
Arctic
Niger
1. How climate change undermines the enjoyment of
human rights
• IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (2014) describes the impacts climate
change is having and will have on human health, food security,
employment, poverty and security.
• Major disruptions to the basic functions of human society will occur
unless the world takes aggressive action to limit greenhouse gas
pollution.
• Continuing climate change will have serious impacts on human
health, will slow economic growth and poverty reduction, further
erode food security and trigger new poverty traps.
• A global average temperature increase of more than 4°C could make
normal activities like growing food impossible in many regions where
people currently live.
Climate Change Impacts
Impacts on Human/Social Systems
Human rights affected
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Temperature rises
Risk of extreme weather
events
Threats to unique
ecosystems
Changes in precipitation
and distribution of water.
Threats to biodiversity
Sea-level rises, flooding
and storm surges
Large scale “singularities”
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Increased health
risks/fatalities from diseases
and natural disasters
Increased water Insecurity
Loss of livelihoods
Changes in agricultural
productivity and food
production
Threats to security/societal
cohesion
Effects on human settlements,
land and property leading to
migration and displacement
Impacts on political/public
services
Damage to vital Infrastructure
and public utilities
Loss of cultural integrity
Decline in natural systems
services
Distribution of impacts
(vulnerable, poor, and
marginalized are hit first and
hardest)
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Life
Poverty, adequate standard of living, and means of
subsistence
Food and hunger
Health
Water
Culture
Property
Adequate and secure housing
Education
Work
Property
Women’s, children’s, and indigenous people’s rights
Self determination
1. How climate change undermines the enjoyment of
human rights
Resolutions of the UN Human Rights Council:
• Resolution 7/23, 2008 - the first time a UN resolution stated explicitly 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”.
• Study by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in January
2009 asserts that global warming “will potentially have implications for the full
range of human rights”.
• Resolution 10/4, 2009 - the effects of climate change will fall hardest on the rights
of those people who are already in vulnerable situations “owing to factors such as
geography, poverty, gender, age, indigenous or minority status and disability.”
• Resolution 18/22, 2011 - affirmed that human rights obligations, standards, and
principles have the potential to inform and strengthen international and national
policy making in the area of climate change, promoting policy coherence,
legitimacy, and sustainable outcomes.
• Resolution 26/27, 2014 - recognises the need to fully respect human rights when
taking climate action. Mandated panel discussion in March 2015 on i) international
cooperation; ii) right to food.
1. How climate change undermines the enjoyment of
human rights
“If there is a major challenge on human rights that deserves
global commitment, leadership and collaboration, this is the one:
the moral responsibility to act now against climate change.”
President Tong, Republic of Kiribati at Human Rights Council panel on Human Rights and Climate
Change, March 2015
1. How climate change undermines the enjoyment of
human rights
• The Cancun Agreements, December
2010, note Resolution 10/4 of the
UNHRC
• Decision 1/CP16 includes a reference to
existing human rights obligations in the
overarching section on a shared vision
for long-term cooperative action; it
“emphasises that Parties should, in all
climate change-related actions, fully
respect human rights.”
2. How climate actions can pose risks to human rights
Policy Risks
Direct Impacts
Indirect Impacts
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Inadequate consultation with citizens & communities
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[Violent] displacement of people and communities
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Exclusion from, or diversion of, essential resources
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Increasing food prices and energy costs
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Loss of livelihoods for communities employed in fossil fuel sectors
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Diminished developmental progress reducing countries overall
ability to provide conditions for the realisation of rights
Source: Zero Carbon Zero Poverty The Climate Justice Way. Mary Robinson Foundation, 2015
2. How climate actions can pose risks to human rights
“Climate change, exacerbated by increasingly scarce natural
resources, biofuel policies and financial speculation trends, is
having a domino effect for food and nutritional security for
the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people”.
Olivier de Shutter, former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food.
It is generally accepted that the diversion of corn production to ethanol for
biofuels was a significant contributor to global food price increases during
2007-2008. This led heightened food insecurity with the worst effects on poor
and vulnerable people.
Series of reports (UNHRC 2008, 2009; De Shutter 2010) by Special Rapporteur
on the Right to Food – outlines how climate change and climate mitigation
may impact food security and offers suggestions for improving the protection
of the right to food.
2. How climate actions can pose risks to human rights
Barro Blanco Dam, Panama
• CDM project - approved in June 2011
despite the concerns of local people
(Ngöbe)
• UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of
Indigenous People visited Panama in July
2013
• In his report he concludes that there is a
strong opposition against the dam among
the Ngöbe, and that they were not
properly consulted.
• Feb 2015 - construction suspended
pending outcome of complaint
mechanism of the Dutch bank (FMO)
financing the project.
3. How human rights obligations can inform more
effective climate action
“Applying human rights in the
context of climate change brings
many benefits. It moves the rights of
affected individuals and communities
centre stage in all response
strategies.”
‘….. make sure that human rights are at the core of climate
change governance. Human rights must be pivotal in the
ongoing negotiations and the new agreement must be firmly
anchored in the human rights framework. Any response to
climate change must respect, protect, promote and fulfil human
rights.’
48 UN Special Mandate Holders, 10 Dec 2014
3. How human rights obligations can inform more effective
climate action
Costa Rica – right to a healthy environment informing climate mitigation actions
Constitutional right to a healthy environment informs participative climate policies in
livestock and coffee sectors that have reduced poverty, realised the right to food,
increased resilience & contributed to more sustainable business.
80% the country’s livestock farmers are taking action to remove thirteen million tonnes
of carbon dioxide equivalent from the atmosphere over a 15 year period.
3. How human rights obligations can inform more effective
climate action
Gender equality informing climate action in Vietnam
• National Strategy and Law on Gender Equality
• National Climate Change Strategy (2011) - successful
adaptation is dependent on marshalling the knowledge,
skills, resources and potential of all citizens; emphasises
the opportunities of climate change response for
advancing rights and socio-economic goals. Includes
gender equality as a specific objective.
• National Strategy for Disaster Prevention, Response and
Mitigation to 2020 (2007) identifies the negative
impacts that natural disasters cause to vulnerable
groups such as women and children
• Actions to adapt to climate related disasters are
informed by rights and are empowering previously
vulnerable women to be actors in the national response
to climate change.
• Ran Nguyen a farmer in the Bing Ding province in
central Vietnam,
“Thanks to good preparation… …nobody in the village was
killed or injured in last year’s storm season.”
Research - Respecting Human Rights in Climate Action
Documents assessed
All National Communications since
2010 and all NAPAs
Most recent reports to the UN
Human Rights Council Universal
Periodic Review (UPR)
since 2010
Research - Respecting Human Rights in Climate Action
Findings
The majority of
countries do not
address the link
between human
rights and climate
change
Research - Respecting Human Rights in Climate Action
Findings
Developing countries more frequently referenced
substantive rights. Parties to the Aarhus convention were
4 times more likely to refer to specific procedural rights.
Substantive Rights
12% of references were made by
developing countries while only 1%
came from developed countries
Procedural Rights
10% of references were made by
developing countries and 10% came
from developed countries
Research - Respecting Human Rights in Climate Action
Findings
In National Communications to the UNFCCC, specific rights
received very little attention. For instance, only 2% of
National Communications contained a reference to the right
to access water.
Respecting Human Rights
in Climate Action
Findings
Developed Countries referred more
frequently to the need for
integration of human rights in
developing countries climate policies
than they did in relation to their own
domestic policy.
Reference to domestic policy
Reference to international affairs
Respecting Human Rights in Climate Action
Findings
Only 12 countries demonstrated coherence in reporting on
the link between climate change and human rights across
reports to both the UNFCCC and the Human Rights Council
4. What this means for the 2015 climate agreement and the
Post 2015 development agenda
Financing for
Development
4. What this means for the 2015 climate agreement and
the Post 2015 development agenda
Research recommendations
1. Parties to UNFCCC ensure that the
2015 climate agreement under
the UNFCCC requires the
integration of human rights into
climate action
2. Enable and support countries to
adopt rights-based approaches
into climate action
3. Strengthen monitoring and
reporting on human rights and
climate change
4. What this means for the 2015 climate agreement and
the Post 2015 development agenda
Geneva Pledge on Human Rights and Climate Action
• Voluntary initiative to facilitate the sharing of best practice and
knowledge between human rights and climate experts at a national
level – initiated March 2015.
• The pledge was signed by 18 countries including representatives
from Latin America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Small Island
Developing States.
• Pledge to enable meaningful collaboration between national
representatives in the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change and the processes of the Human Rights Council.
Thank you
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