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Climate Justice and Human Rights:
Two sides of the same coin
By Vicente García-Delgado, CIVICUS´ UN Representative
Release Date: 28 August 2008 = e-CIVICUS 404
Dear friends,
In a remarkably short period of time Climate Justice has become a worldwide citizen movement. The cry for Climate Justice has now been taken up by practically all sectors of civil society, and the search is on for new forms of civil society collaboration with a truly interdisciplinary, holistic approach. Notably in this regard, former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the Global Humanitarian Forum recently launched the Global Alliance for Climate Justice - (www2.ghfge.org/index.cfm?uNewsID=81).
The Alliance's two-day meeting last June was "the first time that the issue of the human impact of climate changes, as opposed to its environmental and emissions aspects, was the centre of an international conference of such high and wide-ranging levels."
The urgent call by global civil society for Climate Justice may thrust forth from many different and diverse civil society perspectives, angles and geographical and cultural backgrounds; but in the end, they all seem to gravitate around one essential common realization: climate change is fast becoming one of the greatest challenges to Human Rights.
Whether we approach Climate Justice from any one specific civil society perspective, be it humanitarian, environmental, development, health, gender, human rights, gender equality, policy advocacy, citizen participation, peace and security, or global governance, all points of entry and all disciplines and sectors of civil society lead to the same growing sense that a great wrong is being perpetrated against people living in poverty, whose cultures, livelihoods, health and their very survival now depend on an anthropogenic climate change not of their making.
These are the most vulnerable members of the human family, and already climate change impacts are hitting hard on them. They live in communities and countries that have little or no adaptive capacity and are least prepared to face the ravages of climate impacts. But despite the huge accumulation of wealth accruing to tiny elites over the last few decades of rampant market globalization, many governments continue to display an irresponsible disregard for the needs, concerns and aspirations of people living in poverty. As a result, billions of impoverished people are left to fight by themselves a grim struggle of daily survival in the midst of abject poverty now exacerbated by climate change.
Civil society shall not stand by passively as the poorest of the poor are politely shown the plank. Human rights have now reached an entirely new planetary dimension as climate change impacts result in widespread loss of life, health and livelihoods among millions of innocent bystanders.
Civil society is already finding new associational spaces and greater opportunities for effective, collaborative action on reversing the current state of affairs, where each day of inaction translates into greater human suffering and geometrically higher mitigation and adaptation costs later.
On Climate Change mitigation, even developed countries are at odds among themselves on what to do; who, how and when to do it, and who will pay for it. At Bali, the standards were lowered, mostly in exchange for the expectation that the United States would get fully on board. References to time-bound targets and milestone setting were downgraded to a mere footnote, perhaps based on the hope that they would still indicate the standards to be agreed through the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations. But this turned out to be nothing more than wishful thinking. The US Administration still refuses to own up to its fair share of "common but differentiated responsibilities" on climate change mitigation.
The meager outome of the recent G8+5 summit took yet another step back: a toothless comitmment to halve GHG emissions by 2050, without setting interim milestones or targets. Why, the G8 countries didn't even bother to clarify what year, 1990 as set forth under the Kyoto Protocol, or 2000, or even 2008, should be taken as the base year for measurements. Meanwhile, emissions in some of the most energy intensive industrialized nations have continued to rise substantially since 1990, particularly in Australia and the United States, and there are serious concerns among scientists that the World may soon be entering a period of climate-related tipping points. Some of the most recent scientific observations (not included in the IPCC reports) are truly alarming, considering the speed and dimension of some climate impacts, such in the Arctic.
Sadly the IPCC reports are starting to look old… There's growing concern that they may come way short of what's in store for humanity.
According to current estimates 50 million people might become forced climate-related migrants by 2020; yet our supposedly reasonable and responsible world leaders decide to shoot past an additional 30 years down the road, to 2050, before they will even show results on their anemic climate change mitigation targets adopted 42 years earlier... Just how many millions forced migrants will the world have to cope with by 2050? If rich countries insist in burying their heads ever deeper in the sand, the disastrous, perhaps catastrophic consequences of a runaway climate chaos will reach unmanageable levels and dangerouly imperil the survival of our civilization.
There are two popular phrases that my American friends have taught me: "There is no such thing as a free lunch" and "when realizing you are digging yourself into a hole, first of all stop digging." Pretending that we can get out of this mess on the cheap would surely cost us dearly, and the price would mostly fall on our own future generations. To our recalcitrant or timid world leaders we say: The time for action was 30 years ago but we are still on square one; it´s hight time for effective, decisive and collaborative action on climate change, including civil society and the private sector as partners in the process.
If this is the sorrow state of Climate Change Mitigation progress so far, Climate Change Adaptation efforts lag far behind. Multilateral climate adaptation funds for developing and less-developed countries are ridiculously inadequate considering the scale of climate impacts facing vulnerable populations. Wealthy countries have the resources to develop detailed climate adaptation strategies and plans, often involving large, costly and technologically advanced projects. For example, as the latest UNDP Human Development Report points out, the British Environment Agency has called for at least US$8 billion to be spent strengthening the Thames Barrier-a mechanized flood defense structure that protects London. At the other end of the spectrum, however, Burundi has a meager US$160,000 budget at its disposal to cover all its adaptation needs.
To people living in poverty in regions specially vulnerable to climate impacts, climate change is not a future scenario, the UNDP Report reminds us; but, there, people are left to fend by themselves, having to devote scarce resources and additional labor in their attempts to adapt to current and future climate impacts.
The Report includes stark examples of how profoundly climate change can adversely affect human rights under such conditions; for instance, " In northern Kenya the increased frequency of droughts means that women are walking greater distances to collect water, often ranging from 10 to 15 km a day. This confronts women with personal security risks, keeps young girls out of school and imposes an immense physical burden-a plastic container filled with 20 litres of water weighs around 20 kg."
I submit to you that if news ever broke out that a young woman in a European country had been forced to drop out of school and spend her live fetching 20kg containers of water from a well 10 kilometers away from home, political scandal would be assured. Outraged citizens would rightly demand responsibilities, and a national debate may ensue on the state of social services. Where were the social workers? How could something like this ever happen? Heads may roll, and a bill might be introduced in Parliament to tighten up the accountability, training and monitoring of official agencies at the Ministries of Health and Social Services, Interior, Education and all other agencies in charge of children´s welfare. Her parents would be immediately interrogated and might be charged with endangering the welfare of a minor, false imprisonment, domestic violence, criminal servitude and so on…
The fact, however, that millions of children in poor countries do live in such, or even more untennable conditions (as, for example, the multitude of children eeking out a living amid mountains of trash in huge urban dumps) does not seem to matter that much judging by the ennervating slow response, if not indifference, to this gross and massive violation of human rights.
Who among us can honestly deny the injustice, the hypocrisy, and the double standards?
Day after day tens of millions of people are being denied their most basic human rights, the right to life, food, health, education, employment, the environment, development, access to basic services and information, equal justice under the law, gender discrimination and a long etcetera, due mostly to abject poverty, scarcity of food or water, insufficient or non-existent health and education services, loss of livelihoods or internal and external conflicts. These appalling conditions are now exacerbated by global food shortages and steep rises in food prices, growing inflation and climate change impacts, and they cry out for Justice: Justice grand enough to end poverty, marginalization and exclusion, gender and ethnic discrimination; justice for access to natural and legal resources, information and knowledge, and finally justice for protection from climate change impacts.
Archibishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu has said:
"No community with a sense of justice, compassion or respect for basic human rights should accept the current pattern of [climate change] adaptation. Leaving the world's poor to sink or swim with their own meagreresources in the face of the threat posed by climate change is morally wrong. Unfortunately, as the Human Development Report
2007/2008 powerfully demonstrates, this is precisely what is happening. We are drifting into a world of 'adaptation apartheid'."
What can civil society do?
First of all, it behooves all of us in different sectors of civil society to fully recognize the need for a more solid unity around the call for Climate Justice. Until recently, climate change has been viewed in different concrete ways by different civil society sectors. But there is no longer any justification for the long going mistrust between "environmentalists" and "human rights activists" on climate issues, to give an example; a mistrust that can only weaken effective, collaborative civil society action on issues of Climate Justice and therefore risks being a major disservice to millions of our intended beneficiaries, including future generations. This situation must, and indeed is being put to an end. We must understand the urgent need for strong interdisciplinary action and intersectoral collaborations. Collectively we now understand that human rights, poverty, sustainable development and climate change are intimately interconnected and that all these challenges must be tackled simultaneously in a coherent, systemic and holistic manner, including governments, the private sector and civil society. There can be no end to poverty without sustainable development, and neither is possible without decisive and courageous action on climate change mitigation and adaptation.
This is our new call for action: Climate Justice and Human Rights for our Century and beyond; Climate Justice and Human Rights for our future generations.
Please send your comments and suggestions to CIVICUSUN@aol.com or editor@civicus.org.
Below you will find all previous columns of Vicente García-Delgado, CIVICUS UN Representative:
• Forced
migration and the costs of inaction
• Climate change coalition at the CIVICUS World Assembly
• Climate Justice Workshop: Organising for effective community action on climate change
• GCAP, CIVICUS, ATD Fourth World address UN meeting on the MDGs
• Rebuttal to “Climate change is not as big a problem” article appearing on last week’s e-CIVICUS
• The global food crisis: Are the rich abandoning the poor?
• Climate Justice: Fighting climate adaptation apartheid
• Taking into account the full range of consequences --UN
DPI/NGO COnference calls to action on Climate Change
• NGO Accountability: One size does not fit all
• Global Challenges call for Globalising Democracy
• October 24, UN Day-Cause for celebration; reasons for concern
• Digital Divide or Digital Solidarity: Bridging the gap between the information-rich and the information-starved
• The UN: Limping along
• The last thing the world needs: Dismantling the UN
• The world needs a more democratic United Nations
• UN Management Reform hits a nerve: roadblock or power grab?
• A UN Secretary-General for “We the Peoples”: Civil society calls for a more democratic selection process
• Charting new ways of participation: Is it time for a Parliamentary Assembly at the UN?
• Changing the tone: General Assembly President Jan Eliasson reaches out to Civil Society
• Changing the tone: General Assembly President Jan Eliasson reaches out to Civil Society
• Argentina: Thriving without the IMF
• The Big Letdown: UN Summit shortchanges the poor
• The World Summit : UN Reform will mean little unless poverty eradication tops the agenda
• Millions roar but the G8 whispers - Let the Millennium+5 Summit make up the difference
• “Global Justice - Northern citizens have a special responsibility to make it happen”
• Letting the United Nations be all that it can
• “Appointment with History: The world looks up to John Bolton to help achieve the MDGs”
• “We are rolling!: Civil society’s call for poverty eradication impacts the World Economic Forum and the Group of Seven”
• No more excuses!: The Tsunami must not be allowed to wash away the Millennium Development Goals
• A Call To Action 2005: Global Civil Society mobilizes to demand an end to poverty and the fulfilment of the Millennium Development Goals
• TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT: Should civil society and the Global Compact live under the same UN roof?
• The UN Global Compact: A big red herring disguised in UN blue?
• Happening now: A global revolution of consciousness
• Lasting security for all: Shifting from state security to security of the people
• The UN – Permanently relevant or temporarily relevant?