Climate Change and Human Rights: A Rough Guide

This report from the International Council on Human Rights Policy discusses the human rights impacts of climate change and maps research agendas. It argues that human rights principles can guide climate change policy by focusing on individual suffering and exposure to risk. It includes forewords by Mary Robinson and Romina Picolotti. It bases its discussion on the observation that climate change responses can be made more effective if policymakers include human rights thresholds (minimum acceptable levels of protection) when assessing future impacts of climate change and of adaptation and mitigation strategies.

The report finds that: "Collective action is urgently needed to address the justice and distribution issues raised by climate change. These issues are not adequately covered by the current human rights framework. Human rights imperatives can help to generate new solutions by: focusing policy on the human suffering caused by climate change and the particular vulnerability of those with weak rights protection; providing a shared legal language for consensus-building; and highlighting the moral link between local causes and distant effects."

Further, the report states: "Human rights thresholds can be used to inform both adaptation policies (by assessing risks to basic social rights and existing capacity for addressing those risks) and mitigation policies. In relation to global and local mitigation policies such as fuel substitution, factors to consider include: the potential clash between a strategy's human rights and environmental impacts; the local context, as the resource redistribution involved in some policies may have negative effects; and the long-term effects of global schemes such as emissions trading, which may involve significant transfers of development potential (including usage rights to the atmosphere) into private hands.

Further recommendations are that:

• Narrow decision-making processes related to climate change (such as when decisions are made via the World Bank) should be reviewed for adherence to procedural rights to information and participation.
• Accurate baseline data is required for effective climate change policymaking and poor states need help in compiling this.
• Rich countries must ensure: that companies do not just move their emissions burdens to poor countries to escape caps; that private international companies do not avoid their responsibilities to developing countries by exploiting the differential treatment of public entities; and that the human rights issues of companies' control over or reliance on increasingly scarce natural resources are addressed."