Climate Change and Human Rights
What’s New?
‘Seminar: Climate Change and Human Rights: A Tragedy in the Making’: at this seminar President von Doussa will discuss a human rights approach to climate change. Emily Gerrard, former lawyer from Native Title Services Victoria, will speak about the impact of climate change on indigenous rights. This seminar is part of a series hosted by the Australian Human Rights Commission in celebration of the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Climate Change and Human Rights: this article, by the Hon John von Doussa QC, President of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, was published in the June 2008 issue of InSight, the monthly magazine of the Centre for Policy Development.
Why are human rights relevant to the climate change debate?
Governments have traditionally approached climate change as an ecological problem or more recently, as an economic one. So far, the social and human rights implications of climate change have not been widely recognised. The effects of climate change will threaten internationally accepted human rights; rights to life, to food, to a place to live and work. In addition, policies designed to address climate change themselves have the potential to negatively impact on human rights. For this reason, it is important to look at how a human rights-based approach can contribute to the development of climate change policy.
What human rights are affected by climate change?
In February 2008 Ms Kyung-wha Kang, the United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights stated that:
Global warming and extreme weather conditions may have calamitous consequences for the human rights of millions of people…ultimately climate change may affect the very right to life of various individuals…[countries] have an obligation to prevent and address some of the direst consequences that climate change may reap on human rights.
There are many broad rights recognised in the key international instruments that are relevant to the situation of people whose way of life comes under threat from climate change. Examples of rights that will be negatively affected by climate change include:
- The Right to Life: The effect of climate change on the right to life may be immediate; for example, death caused by extreme climate-change induced weather. It may also appear gradually; for example, when climate change causes people’s health to deteriorate, limits their access to safe drinking limited and makes them more susceptible to disease.
- Right to Adequate Food: regional food production will most likely drop. Increased temperatures and changes in rainfall patterns will lead to erosion and desertification. This will make previously productive land infertile and reduce crop and livestock. Rising sea levels will make coastal land unusable and cause fish species to migrate, while more frequent extreme weather events will disrupt agriculture.
- Right to Water: As the earth gets warmer, heat waves and water shortages will make it difficult to access safe drinking water and sanitation. There will be lower and more erratic rainfall in the tropical and sub-tropical areas of the Asia Pacific, which will get worse as the Himalayan glaciers melt.
- Right to Health: Climate change will have many impacts on human health. These will mainly be caused by disease and malnutrition. For example, changes in temperature will affect the intensity of a wide range of vector-borne, water-borne and respiratory diseases.
- Human Security: Climate change has the potential to aggravate existing threats to human rights. The impacts of climate change will increase people’s vulnerability to poverty and social deprivation. People whose rights are poorly protected are also generally less equipped to adapt to climate change impacts.
- Rights of indigenous peoples: Climate change has a big impact on indigenous peoples around the world. It impacts them in a unique way; due to the deep engagement they have with the land. For example, it has been predicted that northern Aboriginal communities will bear the brunt of climate change and will face serious health risks from malaria, dengue fever and heat stress, as well as loss of food sources from floods, drought and more intense bushfires.
How do climate change policies impact on human rights?
Responses to climate change have generally focuses on the following areas:
- Mitigation: governments have primarily responded to climate change by introducing measures to lower its rate of acceleration, mainly by cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
- Adaptation: because climate change will continue, even with successful mitigation, governments are establishing measures that support affected communities to adapt to climate change, reducing the risks and limit the damage caused by climate change.
- Relocation: there are communities around the world already being displaced by climate change. While some migration policies have been introduced, to date there has been no coordinated response from the international community to address the needs of these so called ‘climate change refugees’.
With climate-change induced disasters expected more often and on a bigger scale, it is also likely that there will be an increasing focus on disaster relief. Governments will need to make plans for the evacuation and protection of large numbers of people.
However, the responses themselves can detrimentally impact on human rights and exacerbate already existing social inequity. Australia’s peak environment and welfare groups have highlighted that low-income and disadvantaged people may be disproportionately affected by measures pursued to minimise the risks associated with climate change. For example, using low carbon alternative energy sources means unit costs will rise. The most disadvantaged will struggle to live with increased costs.
Why should climate change policies incorporate human rights standard and principles?
As a signatory to the major international human rights instruments, Australia has an obligation to protect people against the threat that climate change poses to human rights. But the challenge is to develop a response to climate change that distributes rights and responsibilities equally.
What then does human rights discourse offer governments when developing appropriate responses to climate change? The answer, it appears, is a lot.
A human rights-based approach to climate change refocuses and re-centres the debate on individuals and communities. The practical value of a human rights-based approach is that:
- Individuals are seen as rights-holders, puttingresponsibility on government to make channels available for their participation and input into policy development.
- There is an emphasis on local knowledge of the environment and ways to protect it. For example, incorporating traditional cultural practices of indigenous communities into climate change responses.
- The principles of non-discrimination and substantive equality are a key element of policy formulation. Decision makers must weigh up the likely impact on disadvantaged or vulnerable groups when deciding on policy.
- Core minimum human rights standards guide decision makers when they are weighing up competing demands on limited resources.
For these reasons, whether particular climate change responses relate to adaptation for local communities, to aid for adaptation overseas, or to immigration policies for people escaping environmental catastrophes, a human rights-based approach to policy development could, and should, be adopted to provide a standard for evaluating policy and resource allocation.
Past Projects and Publications
Australian Human Rights Commission Background Paper:
In April 2008 the Australian Human Rights Commission released a Background Paper looking at the human rights dimensions of climate change. The Paper looks at how the obligations on governments in international human rights instruments might apply when developing climate change policy.
Submissions:
The Commission made a submission to the Australia 2020 Summit in April 2008, supporting a human rights-based approach to climate change policy.
Speeches:
Speeches by the President and Commission staff include the following:
Climate Change and Indigenous Peoples, Speech by Warwick Baird, Director of Native Title Unit, Australian Human Rights Commission, Native Title Conference 2008, 5 June 2008
Agenda 6: Half day discussion on the Pacific, Panel statement by Tom Calma, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, United Nations Permanent Forum, New York, 23 April 2008
Climate Change: Catastrophic Impacts and Human Rights, Delivered by the Hon John von Doussa QC, President, Australian Human Rights Commission at the University of Adelaide, 11 December 2007
