Human rights and climate change
"[8] The petition was rejected, but the Commission invited and heard testimony on the relationship between human rights and climate change from representatives for the Inuit in 2007.
[16] The report identified displaced persons, conflict and security risks as well as impaired rights of indigenous peoples, women, and children as major concerns.
[18] The report on the outcome of the Conference emphasized that "Parties should, in all climate change related actions, fully respect human rights.
As a result, in 2012 the HRC established a mandate on human rights obligations relating to the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment.
[20] A preliminary report by the appointed Independent Expert, John H. Knox, further stated that there needed to be priority in providing greater conceptual clarity to the application of human rights obligations related to the environment.
The Paris Agreement, as adopted on the 12 December 2015 at the Conference of the Parties, is the most important indication of increasing awareness towards the relationship between climate change and human rights.
The HRC has affirmed that human rights obligations have the ability to strengthen both international and national policy-making in the area of climate change.
[29][30] As according to Philip Alston, a UN expert, global warming will likely undermine democracy and the rule of law, in addition to basic human rights to life.
The Oslo Principles on Global Climate Change Obligations for states and enterprises are based, in part, on human rights law.
[34] Climate change will equally affect the right to life through an increase in hunger and malnutrition and related disorder impacting child growth and development, respiratory morbidity and ground-level ozone.
[34] Rising sea levels is one of the flow-on effects of climate change, resulting from warming water and melting ice sheets.
[38] This is derived from Article II of the ICESCR where States party to the Covenant have to maximise their available resources to achieve the right to adequate food.
[41] Article 2 calls for adaption to the adverse impacts of climate change and the lowering of greenhouse gas emissions in a manner that will not threaten food production.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that since 1970, climate change is responsible for 150,000 deaths every year through increasing incidence in the spread of diarrhoea, malaria and malnutrition predominantly in Africa and other developing regions.
[48] "Mega-deltas" in Asia, Africa, and small islands are at high risk of floods and storms, which will cause large-scale displacement of the local populations.
In 2014 Siego Alesana left the small island developing state of Tuvalu because of the uncertainty surrounding the adverse effects of climate change.
[50] International peacebuilding NGO International Alert names 46 countries where climate change effects (including water scarcity, loss of arable land, extreme weather events, shortened growing seasons, and melting glaciers) may interact with economic, social, and political forces to create "a high risk of violent conflict.
[55] Climate change impacts indigenous peoples differently not only because of their physical and spiritual connections to the land and water, but also because they have a specialised ecological and traditional knowledge that can be used to find the best mitigation strategy of those effects.
[59] Researchers at the Overseas Development Institute identified that children in South Asia may be particularly vulnerable to violations of human rights following climate related disasters.
