Analytical Briefing on Climate Ambition and Sustainability Action
July 2019, Issue No. 1
Message from R. K. Pachauri
The issue of climate change impacts, the risks that they carry and their implications for human rights are a set of issues that have hardly received attention. The focus both in a scientific context and within a policy perspective has generally been confined to technological and economic aspects of this growing challenge. But as science has advanced in explaining the reasons behind human induced climate change, we now have several elements which are a part of what must constitute an overall assessment of human rights related to the impacts of climate change.
The Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its Summary for Policy Makers, states: “Continued emission of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and long-lasting changes in all components of the climate system, increasing the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems”. Further that “climate change will amplify existing risks and create new risks for natural and human systems. Risks are unevenly distributed and are generally greater for disadvantaged people and communities in countries at all levels of development”. This clearly means that some communities and regions are far more vulnerable than others, and hence their human rights would perhaps be infringed on to a much greater degree than others elsewhere, perhaps with lower population and severity of impacts. It is also true that over time the vulnerability to impacts may change from place to place. In the event of increase in sea levels, for instance, some low-lying regions could suffer severe impacts in the future. In fact, this could be the reason why, as the AR5 states: “Climate change is projected to increase displacement of people. Populations that lack the resources for planned migration experience higher exposure to extreme weather events, particularly in developing countries with low income. Climate change can indirectly increase risks of violent conflicts by amplifying well-documented drivers of these conflicts such as poverty and economic shocks”. Also, “from a poverty perspective, climate change impacts are projected to slow down economic growth, make poverty reduction more difficult, further erode food security and prolong existing and create new poverty traps, the latter particularly in urban areas and emerging hotspots of hunger”.
All of these developments constitute a growing assault on the human rights of individuals who are affected, and the extent to which they would be disadvantaged would depend on their vulnerability and the extent of exposure and severity of the impacts that they are subjected to. In a world where disparities of income and wealth are increasing at an alarming rate, an international mechanisms for redressal of human rights and, at a minimum, the grant of compensation, for effective adaptation for those affected should be made mandatory. Obviously, countries and societies historically responsible for cumulative emissions of greenhouse gases may resist any such measure, but the conscience of the world has to be provoked by all those who are concerned about this new threat to human rights which would engulf a much larger number of people in the future.