Climate Change Poses New Threats to Human Rights

[Lauren Zajac]

Climate change poses new threat to global rights.

LINK: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/climate-change-poses-new-threat-to-global-r
ights-20081209-6uv4.html?page=-1

* Mary Robinson The Age Australia
* December 10, 2008

SIXTY years ago today, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the cornerstone document that
was
created in the aftermath of unimaginable atrocities. This declaration,
and
the legal documents that stemmed from it, have helped us combat
torture,
discrimination and hunger. And now, this venerable document should
guide us
in the fight against one of the greatest challenges ever to face
humankind:
climate change.

As representatives from virtually every country in the world are
sitting at
the negotiating table in Poznan, Poland for the UN Conference on
Climate
Change, poor people around the world are already coping with the
impacts of
global warming. From increasing droughts to increasing floods, from
lower
agricultural productivity to more frequent and severe storms, many
rightly
fear that things will only get worse. Their human rights - to
security,
health, and sustainable livelihoods - are increasingly being
threatened by
changes to the earth's climate.

Indeed, the poorest who contributed the least to the problem of
climate
change are now bearing the brunt of the impacts. Ninety-seven per cent
of
all natural disaster-related deaths already take place in developing
countries. In South Asia, the 17 million people who live on sandbanks
in
Bangladesh's river basins could be homeless by 2030 as increasing
Himalayan
melt water floods their homes. In Niger, changing rainfall patterns
are
contributing to increased desertification which, for the Tuareg and
Wodaabe
people, has caused massive losses in livestock and food insecurity. In
South
America, a loss of snow in the Peruvian Andes in the next 15-20 years
will
pose a serious risk to the more than nine million people living in
Lima,
Peru's largest city.

But as an important new report by the International Council on Human
Rights
Policy on the links between climate change and human rights makes
clear, the
negative impacts on people of changes in climate do not always involve
horrific headlines and images of hurricanes, floods or refugee camps.
More
commonly, they will be cumulative and unspectacular. Those who are
already
poor and vulnerable are and will continue to be disproportionately
affected.
Incrementally, land will become too dry to till, crops will wither,
rising
sea levels will undermine coastal dwellings and spoil freshwater,
livelihoods will vanish.

Carbon emissions from industrialised countries have human and
environmental
consequences. As a result, global warming has already begun to affect
the
fulfilment of human rights, and to the extent that polluting
greenhouse
gases continue to be released by large industrial countries, the basic
human
rights of millions of the world's poorest people to life, security,
food,
health and shelter will continue to be violated.

Our shared human rights framework provides a basis for impoverished
communities to claim protection of these rights. We must not lose
sight of
existing human rights principles in the tug and push of international
climate change negotiations. A human rights lens reminds us that there
are
reasons beyond economics and enlightened self-interest for states to
act on
climate change. Because climate change presents a new and
unprecedented
threat to the human rights of millions, international human rights law
and
institutions must evolve to protect the rights of these peoples. But,
most
importantly, states must take urgent action to avoid more serious and
actionable violations of human rights.

The principles of human rights provide a strong foundation for policy
making
and these principles must be put at the heart of a global deal to
tackle
global climate change. Urgently cutting emissions must be done in
order to
respect and protect human rights from being violated by the future
impacts
of climate change, while supporting the poorest communities to adapt
to
already occurring climate impacts is the only remedy for those whose
human
rights have already been violated.

As we mark the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, it is worth remembering that climate change violates the
Declaration's affirmation that "everyone is entitled to a social and
international order in which [their] rights and freedoms. . .can be
realised." We must now grasp the opportunity to create the kind of
international order that the framers of the declaration dreamed of -
even in
a radically changed global context they never imagined.

Mary Robinson is the former President of Ireland, former High
Commissioner
for Human Rights and honorary president of Oxfam Inter-national.
===============================================>
<http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html> Universal Declaration of
Human
Rights

On December 10, 1948 the General Assembly of the United Nations
adopted and
proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the full text of
which
... www.un.org/Overview/rights.html

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Human <http://www.un.org/events/humanrights/2008/declaration.shtml>
Rights
Day 2008


Many things can be said about the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights
(UDHR). It is the foundation of international human rights law, the
first
universal ...
www.un.org/events/humanrights/2008/declaration.shtml -