Research News

Climate change policies ignore likely impacts on human rights according to a new report published by the International Council on Human Rights Policy (ICHRP). The report, Climate Change and Human Rights: A Rough Guide argues that human rights principles can influence climate change policy by focusing on the suffering and risk faced by all people, and especially the global poor.

The report describes how climate change is already preventing people from achieving their internationally protected human rights. These include rights to health and life; rights to food, water, shelter and property. The worst effects of climate change including those experienced through migration and conflict are likely to be felt by those individuals and groups whose rights are already under threat, effects which are likely to be most profound in the world’s poorest countries. The poor will be less well-equipped to understand or prepare for climate change effects, less able to lobby for their rights and adapt to change when it comes. So far, little systematic research has examined the human rights dimensions of climate change. The report identifies likely future victims and suggests how responses can focus on those at greatest need, help target funding and change policy.

Former President of Ireland and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson launched the report at the Annual Meeting of the Global Humanitarian Forum, on the Human Face of Climate Change, in Geneva. She notes in her foreword for the report:

"To address climate change effectively will require a transformation of global policy capacity – from information-gathering and collective decision-making to law enforcement and resource distribution. … Human rights law is relevant because climate change causes human rights violations. But a human rights lens can also be helpful in approaching and managing climate change. The human rights framework reminds us that climate change is about suffering – about the human misery that results directly from the damage we are doing to nature. … As this report makes clear, if we build human rights criteria into our future planning, we will better understand who is at risk and how we should act to protect them."

More Information

• Climate Change and Human Rights: A Rough Guide is available for download here.
• DFID supports the research programme of the ICHRP, and in particular it’s work on poverty reduction. See a project record on R4D giving details of DFID’s funding of ICHRP here