By: Morgan Pennings & Della Haanen
Introduction
International human rights are defined as the basic rights and freedoms that all humans should be granted. These rights should be protected by governments, both local and international governments. One way that these rights can be infringed upon are in terms of climate change. Historically, human rights have been primarily centered around the struggle between an oppressor and the oppressed. Generally, the discussion of human rights focuses on groups of people — typically minorities in the given society — who are exploited, taken advantage of, and not given equal opportunities by another group of people with more power. While this is a very important part of the human rights discussion, this definition fails to recognize other factors that contribute to the demise of human rights. One factor that has recently become a very real danger to human rights is the environment, more specifically climate change, which puts already disadvantaged groups of people at risk of even more loss and suffering.
Climate change and global warming are mostly caused by greenhouse gas emissions, which can be found naturally and are essential to human life, in moderation. But with the highest rates of industrialization, deforestation, and large scale agricultural, well-off communities have increased our greenhouse gas emissions to the point that the damage to our environment is nearly irreversible (UN, 2018), and yet these advantaged communities often see little effect from their destructive actions. Climate change has a stronger impact on communities who are already in disadvantaged positions in society.
Explain the Problem
Several activists have recognized the link between a healthy environment and the right to life, adequate housing, food, clean water, and health. Still, not enough people see the need for change in our current environment. Ignorance is a big issue when it comes to climate change as its effects are not directly or immediately seen. Often, the effects of climate change happen after years of harmful contributions and in different areas, so people do not think change is necessary.
But for those disbelievers, there is clear evidence that has been found in recent decades that proves humans have left a serious negative effect on our surrounding environment. According to NASA (2018), global temperatures have risen about 1.62 °F since the 19th century and the world has seen an increased amount of record high and low temperatures. Additionally, many of the world’s ice sheets, arctic sea ice, and glaciers have been diminishing, sea levels have risen about eight inches in the last century — that rate has nearly doubled in the last two decades, and there has been an increased amount of intense rainfall events in the US. These indicators show us that the changes in our climate is very likely to be the fault of human activity, as research has shown that the greatest amount of change has occurred since the mid-20th century (NASA, 2018). It is foolish to think that we have not changed the world around us, when we live in a country based on consumerism. Until the 1950’s, the world has never seen such high levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, which have steadily increased by nearly 25 percent (NASA, 2018). If these trends continue, climate change is inevitable and will soon be irreversible, forever changing the world we live in.
Human rights have been seriously impacted by climate change, which can be seen in heat waves, floods, storms, droughts, rising sea levels, and other exceptional weather events. These events can have an effect on civil and political rights, including: the right to life, the right to self-determination, the right to security, the right to health, the right to clean water, the right to food, the right to adequate housing, and more (Schapper, 2018). One of the major issues with climate change is that those who are contributing the most to greenhouse gas emissions, don’t see as much of the effects as disadvantaged communities who do not have the infrastructure or resources to combat the effects. Additionally, those who create the majority of the emissions, do not do as much as they should to help those communities who see the effects of climate change more directly.
Example: Puerto Rico
One area that we can see climate change’s effect on human rights is in the US territory of Puerto Rico. During the month of September, 2017, Puerto Rico suffered greatly from the effects of both Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria. These hurricanes are no doubt products of climate change and global warming and their impacts have uncovered human rights violations that have been ignored for many years.
Even before the hurricanes, Puerto Rico was struggling to provide adequate human rights for its people as the economy has been steadily declining for the past decade. But the hurricanes merely added to the economic and financial crisis as agriculture and manufacturing lost nearly all production, contributing to the on-going increased unemployment rates and decreased wages. Since 2016, the people of Puerto Rico tried to rally and riot for better rights, as there had been serious cuts made due to the economic crisis, but the government’s response was forceful and there was no progress made for the people. The government continued to cut education and health care as they squandered people’s right to freely express dissent (Naidoo, 2018).
The hurricanes took out the 50-year-old power grid, which hindered emergency response time, adding to the death toll. Puerto Ricans were left without a roof over their head, food, clean water, and available health care. People are still living in shacks with tarps as makeshift roofs, they are bathing in and drinking from rivers, creeks, and other water sources that carry diseases and harmful bacteria, and there is still no conclusive death toll from these disasters, leaving people without closure or the feeling of security (Naidoo, 2018).
The uncertainty of the death toll led US institute, George Washington University (2018), to conduct a study to determine the true mortality rate from Hurricane Maria. It was hard to calculate the actual number because the hurricane may have spurred an increase in migration as people flee in search of safety and security. However, the study showed that there was nearly an eight percent decrease in Puerto Rico’s population and mortality rates increased between September, 2017, and January, 2018. This is no doubt an prolonged effect from the hurricane as health care was scarce and disease was spreading from inadequate drinking water, food, and housing.
Experts say that before the hurricane, nearly half of Puerto Rico’s population lived below the poverty line and a month after the hurricanes there was still very little emergency response available, many hospitals remained closed, and those who had access to drinking water, were not sure if it was contaminated or not. Desperation mounted as thousands remained displaced from the hurricane and those who had a home, were most likely not living in clean or safe conditions. But the Puerto Rican government has little capacity to take care of its people as it filed for bankruptcy in May of 2017 (OHCHR, 2017). So how is a community that has already been struggling for a decade supposed to combat this tragedy on its own? How are people who already do not receive adequate rights supposed to fend for themselves and speak out against their government when they are put down with force by those who are meant to protect their rights?
Responsibilities to Victims
Despite Puerto Rico’s financial and economic struggle, the government should prioritize its people and getting aid to those most disadvantaged, as well as create economic stability. However, as it is a US colony, the US government also needs to take action to provide aid and call on others to provide international aid. The changes also need to take into consideration the probability of this community being struck by another disaster and create sustainable housing, affordable health care, and adequate and sustainable food and water resources.
Because it is a colony, Puerto Rico is left out of many important discussions in the UN and is denied vital information for sustainable development planning to eradicate poverty and inequality. But US has plenary powers over Puerto Rico and has primary responsibility for Puerto Rico before the international community and domestically. This means they have the power to authorize humanitarian aid, but the US response has been slow, inefficient, and filled with bureaucratic hurdles. As a wealthy nation, the United States has a responsibility to victims of the climate catastrophe to take action as administering power and to not take advantage of Puerto Rico’s colonial subordination to restrict resources and political action. On top of international humanitarian aid, the US should be focussing its own disaster relief programs on helping Puerto Rico, including: the World Food Program, the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the UN Disaster Relief Office (Reverón-Collazo, 2018).
The citizens of the United States do not feel the effects of these actions however, as strongly as other poorer countries around the world. Studies show that poor communities contribute the least to this rising temperature of the Earth, but are feeling the effects the most. This uneven distribution of blame is what makes finding a solution to this issue so challenging and complicated. The many layers to this human rights violation makes it difficult to find the main perpetrators, and to find out who is to blame. Manytimes, the most vulnerable areas that are affected the most by the rising Earth temperatures are contributing the least to climate change. This starts a dangerous cycle where the richest countries are able to continue on their path of destruction without any consequences and the poorer countries bear the biggest detrimental harm to their lifestyle.
While Puerto Rico is in desperate need of immediate action, this is a problem that spreads across the globe. Rising sea levels and storms cause flooding, population displacement, scarce freshwater resources, and less habitable or cultivable land. Rising surface temps lead to greater occurrence of diseases and lack of clean water also heightens the spread of diseases. The increasing number and intensity of weather events endanger life, health and housing, which is not exclusively seen in Puerto Rico. Changing coastlines and melting permafrost cause damage to land, houses and other infrastructures. Changes like these can affect the livelihoods and lifestyles of indigenous people and local communities (UN, 2018). Climate change is a global issue that needs immediate response as it has displaced people already in disadvantaged situations and who have little power to create the necessary changes.
No person should be denied basic human rights, yet climate change has added to these problems that cannot be ignored. Everyone should have access to civil rights like the right to life, liberty and freedom of expression, treated equally before the law rights to life, as well as economic and social rights like work, family, education, and health. Yet many are denied, not only by their governing powers, but by their surrounding environment. As horrific environmental events increase, people have lost land and the right to decent housing and self-determination, they lack clean water which can lead to disease outbreaks and the loss of the right to health and life, and many economic infustrustructures like agriculture and tourism are seriously affected and lead to the loss of the right to a means of sustenance and adequate standard of living. One way we can address these problems, is by adhering to the terms laid out in the Paris Climate Agreement of 2015, which has expressed the need for change in order to combat the effects of climate change on an international level.
Paris Agreement: Explained
The Paris Climate Agreement aims to protect human rights whenever a decision is made on the basis of the climate. In December of 2015, many governments from across the globe met in Paris to discuss the state of the environment and to come to an agreement regarding the equal treatment of all humans when it comes to the issue of climate change. One of the focuses of this meeting was on the carbon emissions. Carbon emissions contribute heavily to the global temperatures rising at a steady rate. To decrease the carbon emissions therefore, would slow the increase of these dangerously high temperatures. Another aim of the Paris Climate Agreement was to strengthen the response of countries to the threat of climate change. To keep countries accountable, the Paris Climate Agreement decided that each country would aim to keep the global temperature rise at two degrees Celcius. Each country also agreed to pursue efforts in order to keep this temperature from rising further than that. How the countries would go about doing that was flexible and at their discretion, but the agreed upon notion was that actions have to be taken. To hold countries accountable to their pledge to decrease their carbon emissions, they included a request that all signing parties would provide regular reports on their emissions numbers, in order to ensure they have implementation efforts in place.
In conjunction to holding each other accountable, another part of the agreement included plans to meet every five years in order for the countries to discuss current efforts that they are taking in order to reduce the rising of the Earth’s temperature. They also planned to discuss ways that these efforts being taken could be improved and expanded upon. In 2018, the countries involved had plans to meet again. However, this time, some countries who originally signed refused to attend. In June of 2017, President of the United States, Donald Trump, announced his plan to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement. Trump sided with other politicians who supported the withdrawal of the U.S from the Paris Climate Agreement, claiming that the agreement was a “threat to the economy and U.S sovereignty” (Zhang et. al., 2017). The United States’ withdrawal from the agreement proved to be an obstacle to any further actions to impede the continuation of the destruction of our planet. The obstacle is not only the attitude of the United States, but the impact this withdrawal has on other nations.
This is an obstacle to taking action to combat climate change and rising temperatures for the United States, but it does not come as a surprise considering other actions President Trump made early in his presidency. By withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement, the United States is giving up opportunities to be a part of collective efforts to reduce carbon emissions, transition to renewable energy sources, and lock in future climate measures (Shear, 2017). As soon as he took office, President Trump began overturning energy policies enacted by Obama. The Clean Power Plan was created and enacted by the Obama administration which set a goal for reducing emissions for each U.S state. In March of 2017, President Trump put forth an executive order directing the Environmental Protection Agency to begin the process of rescinding the Clean Power Plan (McBride, 2017). The United States government is proving to be an obstacle hindering forward progress in the global efforts of decreasing the effects of climate change. With leadership who does not believe in the science and the facts backing this issue, we are neglecting our duties to protect these individuals who are at the greatest disadvantage.
Another obstacle to action that stems from this initial denial and withdrawal of the U.S from the Paris Climate Agreement is the attitudes that other countries are now developing as a result. At first, when the United States withdrew, we were among two other countries who didn’t sign the Paris Climate Agreement. The other two countries are Syria and Nicaragua. Now that the United States has withdrawn, other countries are following our lead and either pulling their signatures on the Paris Climate Agreement, or not implementing other new laws in order to contribute to the solution to the rising planet temperatures.
For example, Brazil has refused previous plans to host the 2019 Climate Change Meeting. Brazil was previously a leader in reducing carbon emissions, enacting strict laws and policies to better control deforestation in the Amazon. Because of these initiatives, Brazil became positioned as “one of the most consequential and engaged nations in the effort to reduce climate change” (LondoÑo & Friedman, 2018, para. 4). However, by withdrawing, Brazil is risking their reputation on the line within the United Nations climate negotiations. Some are worried about the image of Brazil being put at risk, “Climate and the environment are the only issues where Brazil is a leader in global terms. We are not leaders in world trade, we are not leaders in a geopolitical sense on security issues. But on climate and environment we are leaders, and we are giving that up” (LondoÑo & Friedman, 2018, para. 8). Brazil had a really good track record with missions to decrease their impact on the rising temperatures of the planet. Jair Bolsonaro, recent president elect of Brazil is coming in with his new administration and making many changes. Some people think that his changes are moving the country backwards, and others are worried about Brazil’s reputation in the United Nations, especially after refusing to host the meeting of the climate agreement (LondoÑo & Friedman, 2018).
In taking a look at the reasons that President Trump may have thought it logical to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, a few notions are found. Recently, Trump has claimed that the United States “is the cleanest” when it comes to clean air and clean water affected by carbon dioxide emissions. Since the United States is not contributing to the problem, he believes that our nation does not need to be a part of the solution (Shear, 2017). However, our nation is contributing to the problem. However, the International Energy Agency recorded and compared each country’s estimated carbon dioxide emissions in 2015. In this chart, the United States is listed as contributing the second largest amount of emissions behind China (International Energy Agency, 2018). This shows that the United States is rejecting our role to contribute to reducing carbon dioxide emissions to do our part in lowering the temperature of the planet.
Despite our president’s disbelief, withdrawal from an important document looking to make a change in the positive direction, and this administration’s halt on regulations to carbon emissions and fossil fuel use; some United States citizens are proving to be resilient. In the next section, I outline what things are currently happening in order to combat climate change on a global level, as well as how we can make a strong impact on the individual level. Despite our current administration, there are ways we can join arms to make a stronger movement in the direction of lessening the impacts of climate change.
Strategy for Moving Forward
In order to resolve this issue of conflict and to give these infringed upon human rights back to the people who are being affected, I think that the first step is to stop pointing fingers. Instead of displacing the blame, countries should step up and take ownership of their destructive actions. Once the countries who are contributing the most carbon dioxide emissions admit their faults, they can start implementing laws and policies in order to change their ways.
One of the obstacles to action outlined previously was surrounding the United States and how a portion of our government is in denial of this climate catastrophe. Backed by science, climate change is happening on our planet. It is important to address this serious issue before it becomes irreversible. In order to make sure that government officials are being held accountable, we can make sure we are informed citizens and informed voters. Taking into consideration a politician’s views on climate change and looking into what types of environmental policies they support or are against can have an impact on who we are electing into office. Having politicians who care about the environment will ensure that future generations will have a planet to explore, live on, and continue to take care of.
One way that the United States is continuing to move forward is some states are continuing to commit to adopting Paris Climate Agreement goals in regards to strict limits on coal-fired power plants. Within the United States, some cities and states are continuing to work towards a greener planet, even without pressure from the federal government. Certain cities and states are keeping their laws that regulate the amount of fossil fuels that are allowed to be burned each month. These efforts are contributing to the efforts to keep the rising temperatures of the Earth down. In a poll conducted by Quinnipiac University, “65% of respondents said that the president should not ‘remove specific regulations intended to combat climate change’” (The Economist, 2017). Many United States citizens and voters do not agree with President Trump’s decision to first, rescind the CPP, and second, to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement.
Lastly, individually each person leaves a carbon footprint throughout their lifetime. Being conscientious consumers can go a long way to reducing the human population’s carbon footprint over time. There are many things that individuals can change which can have a positive impact on reducing carbon emissions. Cutting down on meat consumption and other animal products in our food is a lifestyle change that can go a long way in preserving our planet. Globally, animal agriculture, that is raising livestock for butchering and consumption, accounts for more creating more greenhouse gases than transportation. Animal agriculture has a very large environmental impact, as it requires the use of a lot of resources including water, land and energy (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, 2018).
Another individual lifestyle change to make in order to reduce the destruction of our planet is to reduce the amount of single-use plastic that we are consuming. Single-use plastic is things like plastic cutlery, plastic grocery bags, the plastic coffee cup covers and plastic water bottles; just to name a few items. Plastic is in almost everything these days, and it is very challenging to avoid, however it is a leading cause of pollution on our planet. By avoiding single-use plastic and opting for more reusable and sustainable products, we are contributing to a healthier planet. Single-use plastic ends up in our oceans, causing harm to the wildlife and ecosystem that exists there. Cutting the use of disposable plastics would contribute to a decrease in pollution.
Conclusion
The Paris Climate Agreement aims to keep human rights always at the forefront of decision-making about the environment. When countries do not believe in the science-backed issue of climate change, they are risking the safety and stability of our planet so that their lifestyle can stay the same. Change is difficult, but cutting down on our animal product consumption is an easier change than having to move away from coastal regions when the ocean levels are rising because of melting glacial bodies. By changing our ways, this will hopefully lessen the impact on our environment, and lessen the effects that poorer, developing nations are experiencing. All of these little changes may not seem like they will have an impact on saving our environment, but each little change will add up to be a part of a larger movement.
