Climate Change Violates Human Rights - Publications

• Preface
• Introduction
• Development of a Supplementary Framework for Negotiation and Action
• Climate Change in the UN Human Rights System
• Human Rights Violations in the Course of Climate Change
• Case Examples
  • Africa
  • Asia
  • Latin America
  • Island Nations
  • Indigenous Peoples
• Conclusions and Perspectives
• Literature

Barbara Unmüßig, President of the Heinrich Böll Foundation
Jost Pachaly, Head of Department for Democracy Promotion

Most of the world’s nations have by now included global warming and the immediate effects of climate change on their political agendas. They are currently wrangling over a climate treaty that should finally enact drastic cutbacks in the carbon dioxide emissions produced by industrial as well as a handful of developing nations. The international community also finds itself in tough negotiations over financial transfers from the global North to the global South that are necessary to help developing nations protect themselves from the effects of climate change. In doing so, the North must take on a dual responsibility. While the nations of the North have been polluting the atmosphere for quite some time, the effects of climate change are mainly felt among the poorest levels of society in the nations of the South. These peoples are faced with the destruction of their living space, and their already tenuous rights to water, food, housing, and education are further threatened by climate change. Thankfully, the human rights dimension of climate change is gaining ground in the minds of both politicians and the public at large. For the first time ever, the UN Human Rights Council addressed the connection between climate change and human rights in 2009.

This publication is intended to share this discussion with a wider audience. The report describes examples from various regions and illustrates how the effects of climate change can lead to human rights violations. The publication both complements and defines more precisely the Heinrich Böll Foundation’s long-standing and worldwide dedication to social and environmentally conscious development. Here we would like to express our sincere thanks to Theodor Rathgeber for his contribution to this cause.

In 2007 and early 2008, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued several reports on the current status of climate change. Since 1990 there had been no lack of warnings from the IPCC of the irreversible changes to the vital ocean and atmospheric currents affecting the Earth’s climate and their profound effects on the conditions for life on Earth. However, since the new reports predicted much graver effects of climate change than previously, even their rather moderately formulated statements resulted in considerable commotion. Indeed, the dramatic nature of the issue set off alarm bells among both politicians and the public at large. There is no longer any doubt that we are heading for catastrophic climate changes that are largely the result of human activity. Both politicians and civil society must therefore act quickly and decisively to take precautions against even potential dangers, for the effects of climate change threaten to be irreversible.

One need not study every disaster scenario before it becomes obvious that climate change will lead to a steadily worsening situation with respect to access to land, water, and resources and that this, in turn, will trigger massive movements of refugees, violent conflicts, and wars. Such scenarios indicate that the struggle for survival might well result in radical solutions ultimately leading to mutual annihilation. The Global Humanitarian Forum, founded by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, published a study in 2009 which estimates that the effects of climate change already felt today are resulting in 300,000 deaths each year in the world’s poorer regions with a further 300 million people directly affected in some way. The report predicts that four billion people are vulnerable to the effects of climate change and 500 million at extreme risk. Hence, a climate policy that responds adequately to these challenges must also include acceptable conflict-resolution procedures.

Public awareness increased as the nations of the Global North found themselves faced with lasting and omnipresent problems resulting from the ecological, economic, and social consequences of hurricanes, floods, and droughts. The European heat wave of 2003 in particular caused the public to sit up and take notice. Policymakers, however, continue to believe that conventional disaster-management was sufficient to deal with the foreseeable effects of climate change – as if physics itself were negotiable. There is no doubt that major adjustments are required and that these must involve financial cooperation, technology transfer, and the use of patents, although even here it is difficult enough to reach agreement. In the wake of the preliminary negotiations on the follow-up treaty to the Kyoto Protocol – the last of which took place in Bonn in 2009 – it is still not evident that a technical understanding of the problems at hand will lead to a practical result. Only a handful of industrial nations have shown their willingness to engage in substantial financial and technological cooperation with the Global South.

What is more, there appears to be neither the political will to take decisive climate protection measures nor a readiness commensurate with the seriousness of the situation to change the “business as usual” approach. The assumption would seem to be that better, sounder environmental management will be sufficient. The tough wrangling seen during the Kyoto Protocol negotiations – which came into effect only in 2005, thirteen years after the adoption of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – is still symptomatic of the way states approach the issue even today. The necessary shift in thought and action ought to extend to the negotiating strategies employed in climate change policy. To date, however, many political representatives have continued to act according to familiar patterns, meaning they are willing to offer only the minimum of concessions necessary to keep the negotiating process moving forward. Such a strategy simply does not do enough to meet the immense challenge, nor does it recognize the urgency of the situation.

How can the challenge of finding an appropriate political solution in the form of large-scale cooperation be met without simply falling back on the efforts of engaged individuals and ethical tenets? Here, too, there is more than one approach, even though – in the author’s opinion – the most convincing answers will include the concept of “justice” as a central principle of such considerations. No one has more of a right to use the common global asset known as “the climate” than anyone else. Climate change is a problem for everyone, but the responsibilities are distributed unevenly. In the sphere of climate policy, justice means that – compared with the western nations responsible for global warming – populations and countries affected by poverty as well as social and political marginalization should not only be treated differently with respect to their contribution to climate protection, but should also be given additional development support. This requires not only technical know-how but also a fundamental rethinking of how the world should be organized in the future.

Where can we find a framework for this alternative approach to politics and negotiation? The concept of fairness contends that there is a fundamental right to a dignified existence and a right to the resources that enable this existence. From here it is only a small step to discovering that human rights are the key to mastering this task. The urgency of the problem is already inherent in the instrument at hand: the direct protection of fundamental rights. In the context of climate change, these are predominately the rights to life and health, food and water, housing and property, a healthy environment, and – in the case of indigenous peoples, for example – the preservation of specific cultural characteristics in cases of resettlement and migration. Broad public appreciation of the suffering, fears, and hardships brought about by climate change can be achieved if these are couched in terms of human rights violations. At the same time, internationally recognized norms, procedures, and mechanisms are available that can be used to tackle a variety of tasks simultaneously. These will be discussed below. In several of their position and discussion papers, the Diakonisches Werk der EKD (the social charity of the Protestant Church in Germany), Brot für die Welt (Bread for the World), and Germanwatch have introduced a human rights approach into the discussion surrounding adjustment programs that has highlighted the right to food and water. This approach has been discussed further internationally within the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) – which include the right to food and water – tasks states and governments with providing a minimum of material and cultural security to prevent fears of a loss of livelihood eroding or eliminating social participation. In essence, countries should employ the maximum of available resources and seek international support in order to reduce poverty and promote development. The Frame- work Climate Change Convention assigns states a similar task: to organize international assistance directed at adjustment programs and technology transfer. The “right to development” – which until now has only existed as a declaration of intent – and the Millennium Development Goals are two additional sets of norms based on human rights. In the context of the discussion on climate policy, these two documents provide a point of reference for evaluating the effects of climate change on the development of countries and peoples according to internationally agreed minimum standards and to assist in implementing specific policies.

Climate change does not only affect material livelihoods, however. When entire Pacific island nations are threatened by rising oceans, questions of citizenship and the guarantee of civil freedoms also arise. Political and civil human rights should give everyone the same right of participation in political opinion-forming and decision-making processes, guarantee their right to dissent or dispute the approach taken, and enable access to the legal review of decisions. The guarantee of these rights is integral to the formulation of a climate policy that seeks to take account of authentic interests of local and in particular threatened population groups. For example, natural disasters result in much higher mortality rates for women than for men. Yet the effects of climate change and specific hazards have until now been viewed primarily in terms of the costs entailed for particular sectors – such as health – but not in terms of the effect on entire populations such as indigenous peoples, minorities, women, and children.

Within the context of climate change this gives rise to the maxim that the actions needed to minimize and adapt to the effects of climate change must not infringe upon human rights. The climate-neutral production of energy must not compete with food production, nor should it be allowed to have a negative impact on food security. The construction of large dams, the expansion of monocultures, and the changing use of land and water resources must take the land and water rights of the local population into consideration. This requires a fair system of conflict resolution. A climate policy based on fairness must place access to grievance mechanisms, legal recourse, and generally putting states on a rule of law footing on the agenda. For example, the participation of affected populations in evaluating the damage resulting from climate change must be ensured. This publication will elucidate the connection between climate change and human rights, using case examples to illustrate this relationship.

Human-induced climate change encroaches upon and violates human rights. Its primary victims are the peoples in the countries of the Global South. At the same time, the UN human rights system places instruments in the hands of these peoples, and indirectly in the hands of states, which they can use to demand protection of their rights and to negotiate fair compensation in an international context. Since these instruments are based on human rights, this is not a matter of rich nations dispensing charity to poor ones. The protection of these rights is based on contractual agreements with jointly agreed wording. The human rights approach underpins the ambition to find specific forms of just compensation. The cooperation between differing interests rightly invoked by all sides can find a genuine platform based in human rights standards. As a frame of reference, human rights allow political options and their likely consequences to be closely scrutinized, particularly with respect to their impact on the weakest members of society.

At the same time, a human rights-based political approach is not an all-purpose instrument that can automatically solve the most fundamental problems posed by climate change. The incorporation of human rights norms and procedures into negotiations concerning adaptation, avoidance, technology transfer, the implementation and endowment of funds, questions concerning future development, and many other issues relating to climate change primarily serves, in this author’s opinion, to sensitize negotiations and perspectives to the diversity of local conditions, pave the way for the participation of non-governmental actors previously excluded from official negotiations, and increase the pressure to achieve results commensurate with the urgency as well as the magnitude of the challenge. The Greenhouse Development Rights framework provides a useful theoretical construct with which to embed human rights in climate negotiation procedures.

Those who argue against taking a human rights approach in climate discussions on the grounds that human rights are the responsibility of national states and that this would therefore lead to states being held responsible for human rights violations resulting from climate change, even if they have played little or no part in the infringement of these rights, cannot plausibly sustain their case. Agreements dealing primarily with economic, social, and cultural rights state that poorer nations can assert the implementation of these rights in negotiations over adjustment measures and financial and technological transfers, citing national commitments and signatory states’ obligation to participate in international cooperation. Recourse to human rights would generally tend to strengthen their negotiating position and provide a necessary addition to the negotiating process within the Framework Climate Convention.

A human rights approach is also a good way of ensuring that the concerns of those directly affected are included in any evaluation of the problems posed by climate change and may open up new negotiating options. The assertion of legitimate rights increases the chance of articulating common interests. Although no right to direct participation in signatory negotiations can be derived from the human rights canon, non-governmental actors could do much to bring their case to bear in official negotiations simply by organizing themselves. In order to create institutions and structures aimed at a fair reduction of emissions with a high level of financial transfers and a vital emissions trading scheme, such demands must be actively pursued. A human rights-based political approach would do much to encourage a debate to achieve these ends.

Complaints mechanisms provide a channel to better identify particular threats and come up with specific measures and solutions. What are required are systematic analyses of the effects of climate change on populations at particular risk and research that goes beyond the already well-covered health and transport sectors. The Millennium Development Goals and their human rights-oriented poverty-reduction programs were a successful step in this direction. Traditional knowledge about sustainable use of the environment also has a better chance of being heard, now that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights obliges signatories to heed it.

Nevertheless, this approach is likely to encounter difficulties too. For a start, it is difficult to identify causal chains of events and responsibilities for local environmental damage induced on the other side of the globe. Complex relationships make it impossible in some cases to locate the exact causes of climate change, thus making it impossible to speak of a human rights violation in the strict sense of the term. This, however, is more a matter of determining responsibility and not a human rights issue per se. A fund-based model would seem to point in the right direction, while in such cases the task of the human rights-based political approach would be to lay down minimum standards for housing, income generation, and social livelihood and to specify the obligations of national governments versus those of the international community in assisting the victims of climate change.

A question that remains unanswered is how private companies are to be included in the human rights system. Although the UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights did develop the so-called UN Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights, they were soon officially dropped. Follow-up negotiations with Special Representative of the Secretary General John Ruggie have so far produced little of practical value relevant to the climate debate.

A human rights approach that identifies concrete violations of human rights tends to get more public recognition than one that does not. More media coverage and a greater focus on real human suffering, hardships, and fears would help to raise public awareness of the problem and encourage individuals to consider the true impact of western lifestyles and high energy consumption in the world’s wealthiest regions. Better management of the economy, the introduction of disaster-prevention measures, and insurance coverage of damage are unlikely to be sufficient on their own to counter the threat posed by climate change. Only once it becomes clear that in some parts of the world the minimum requirements for a dignified existence are being violated – and this comes to be viewed as a criminal act as opposed to a mere misdeed – will there be sufficient momentum for an approach to negotiations aimed at true change: in other words, human rights as an instrument to accelerate the political process.