Abstract
The environmental and health consequences of climate change, which disproportionately affect low-income countries and poor people in high-income countries, profoundly affect human rights and social justice. Environmental consequences include increased temperature, excess precipitation in some areas and droughts in others, extreme weather events, and increased sea level. These consequences adversely affect agricultural production, access to safe water, and worker productivity, and, by inundating land or making land uninhabitable and uncultivatable, will force many people to become environmental refugees. Adverse health effects caused by climate change include heat-related disorders, vector-borne diseases, foodborne and waterborne diseases, respiratory and allergic disorders, malnutrition, collective violence, and mental health problems.
These environmental and health consequences threaten civil and political rights and economic, social, and cultural rights, including rights to life, access to safe food and water, health, security, shelter, and culture. On a national or local level, those people who are most vulnerable to the adverse environmental and health consequences of climate change include poor people, members of minority groups, women, children, older people, people with chronic diseases and disabilities, those residing in areas with a high prevalence of climate-related diseases, and workers exposed to extreme heat or increased weather variability. On a global level, there is much inequity, with low-income countries, which produce the least greenhouse gases (GHGs), being more adversely affected by climate change than high-income countries, which produce substantially higher amounts of GHGs yet are less immediately affected. In addition, low-income countries have far less capability to adapt to climate change than high-income countries.
Adaptation and mitigation measures to address climate change needed to protect human society must also be planned to protect human rights, promote social justice, and avoid creating new problems or exacerbating existing problems for vulnerable populations.
Key Words
- climate change;
- human rights;
- inequalities;
- low-income countries;
- public health
“Climate change is a global problem with grave implications: environmental, social, economic, political and for the distribution of goods. It represents one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day. Its worst impact will probably be felt by developing countries in coming decades.”Pope Francis
Introduction
Climate change—the global climate crisis—may be the defining moral issue of the 21st century.1 and 2 The environmental and health consequences of climate change, which disproportionately affect low-income countries and poor people in high-income countries, have profound effects on human rights and social justice.3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 These consequences threaten rights embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, such as the right to security and the right to a standard of living adequate for health and well-being, including food, clothing, housing, medical care, and necessary social services.12 They threaten civil and political rights, such as “the inherent right to life” and rights related to culture, religion, and language, as embodied in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.13 They threaten economic, social, and cultural rights, as embodied in the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural rights, including the following14:
- •
- The right of self-determination.
- •
- The rights to freely determine one's political status and freely pursue one's economic, social, and cultural development.
- •
- The right “to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health”.
- •
- The right to education.
And they threaten the rights of women, as embodied in the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women, especially women living in rural areas of developing countries, who are particularly vulnerable to the consequences of climate change.15 National governments have a duty to ensure that all of these human rights are promoted and protected.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is an international mechanism for facilitating international cooperation in stabilizing atmospheric concentrations of GHGs. It states: “Parties should, in all climate change-related actions, fully respect human rights.”16 The UNFCCC has concluded that human-rights considerations should guide the development, implementation, and monitoring of policies, institutions, and mechanisms related to climate that have been established under the UNFCCC.
Adverse environmental effects caused by climate change include increases in the following17:
- •
- Temperature, as well as increased frequency and/or duration of heat waves.
- •
- Heavy precipitation events.
- •
- Intensity and/or duration of droughts.
- •
- Intense tropical cyclone activity.
- •
- Sea level.
Other environmental phenomena related to climate change include the shrinking of land-based glaciers, increases in chemical pollutants and aeroallergens in ambient air, and changes in ecosystems that reduce biodiversity.17 The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has performed comprehensive assessments of (a) changes that have occurred and the human contribution to these changes and (b) the probability of further changes17 (Tables 1 and 2).
- Table 1.Assessment That Various Changes Have Occurred and Assessment of a Human Contribution to Observed Changes
- From IPCC, 2013: Summary for Policymakers. In: Stocker TF, Qin D, Plattner GK, et al., eds. Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press; 2013:7.
- Table 2.Assessment of the Likelihood of Further Changes in the Early and Late 21st Century
- From IPCC, 2013: Summary for Policymakers. In: Stocker TF, Qin D, Plattner GK, et al., eds. Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press; 2013:7.
Adverse health consequences caused by climate change include heat-related disorders, vector-borne diseases, waterborne and foodborne diseases, respiratory and allergic disorders, malnutrition, violence, and mental health problems.18 and 19
Disparities Among Countries
There are large inequalities among countries in both the amounts of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the magnitude and severity of adverse health consequences experienced as a result of climate change. Developing countries will experience the greatest impact of climate change.20, 21, 22, 23, 24 and 25 In general, those countries that contribute the least to GHG emissions currently experience, and will likely continue to experience, the most adverse health consequences as a result of climate change (Fig. 1).26 For example, in 2004, per-capita GHG emissions in the United States, Canada, and Australia approached 6 metric tons (mt), and those in Japan and Western European countries ranged from 2 to 5 mt. In contrast, annual per-capita GHG emissions in developing countries overall approximate 0.6 mt, and more than 50 developing countries have annual per-capita GHG emissions less than 0.2 mt.
