Climate Change and Human Rights

New Climate Change Agreement May Include Human Rights Protections

 By Lauren E. Bartlett

 

The global climate change talks this last week were much overshadowed by the release of the torture report, mass protests and other news, but potentially have significant implications for the human right to a healthy environment.

 The 20^th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP20) to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) took place on December 1-13, 2014, in Lima Peru with thousands of people in attendance from all over the world.  The COP20 was the last decision-making meeting before the next meeting in December 2015 to be held in Paris, where countries are expected to sign a new climate agreement.  The outcome of the COP20 was a draft of the agreement to be negotiated signed next year.  Human rights and environmental justice advocates, including several U.N. Special Rapporteurs (in 2014 and 2009), Mary Robinson, the Center for International Environmental Law, and others, have called for a human rights-based approach for the new climate agreement.  Specifically, we are hoping for language in the 2015 climate agreement that provides that the Parties shall respect, protect, promote, and fulfil human rights for all.  A side event was organized on December 10, Human Rights Day, in Lima at COP20 to discuss how governments could forge an effective climate deal built on human rights.  You can watch a webcast of that event here.

 As background, the UNFCCC was signed in 1992 and has near universal membership, with196 parties to the agreement.  The UNFCCC is the parent treaty to the Kyoto Protocol, which has 192.  The objective of both treaties is to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere to prevent “dangerous human interference” with the climate system.  However, while the UNFCCC is a landmark treaty that recognized negative impacts of human interference with the climate system, it had no teeth.  The Kyoto Protocol set actual emission reduction goals and a timeline for meeting those goals.  The Kyoto Protocol also focused on developed countries, not developing countries.  China, the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, is not bound to reduce emissions by the Protocol as a developing nation. The U.S., the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases, ratified the UNFCCC but not the Kyoto Protocol.  Lastly, Neither the UNFCC nor the Protocol mentions human rights.  It is also important to note that there is a history of environmental treaties including human rights language, including the 1972 Stockholm Declaration, as was noted by John Knox, U.N. Independent Expert on human rights and the environment.

 There is some good news. The most recently released draft text of the 2015 agreement does include a mention of human rights in the preamble:

 Stressing that all actions to address climate change and all the processes established under this agreement should ensure a gender-responsive approach, take into account environmental integrity / the protection of the integrity of Mother Earth, and respect human rights, the right to development and the rights of indigenous peoples

 None of the draft has actually been agreed upon yet and I am cautiously optimistic that as negotiations continue next year, even better language may be included.  Stay tuned.