Shortfalls of the Climate Change Agreement
What President Barack Obama deemed a "turning point for the world" and President François Hollande holds to be a “revolution for climate change,” esteemed NASA climatologist James Hansen considers “worthless words.” When commenting on the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris, Hansen suggested that although the agreement is an aspirational document full of promises, it lacks the kind of binding commitments and accountability mechanisms that are necessary to effect real change. However, even discussions of the efficacy of emission limits misses a fundamental point: regardless of what the agreement does for future generations, it does very little to resolve the human rights violations that are occurring as a result of climate change right now.
From rising sea levels to rising temperatures, the increase of carbon in the atmosphere is already having catastrophic consequences for people around the world, especially those living in areas susceptible to natural disasters. Last September, typhoon survivors in the Philippines and their allies called for a formal investigation of large fossil fuel companies and their role in perpetrating climate change and the human rights violations that follow. The first formal complaint of its kind worldwide, the legal petition delivered to the Commission on Human Rights in the Philippines called on the commission to investigate the responsibility of “carbon majors,” the ninety fossil fuel corporations that are responsible for 65 percent of all anthropogenic carbon released between 1751 and 2013, for present and future human rights violations resulting from climate change. To assign corporate responsibility for these human rights violations, the petition suggests that the commission identify each fossil fuel corporation’s share of carbon emitted globally and calculate the effects for which those companies are responsible.
This is far from the only example of people looking to existing international protocol to help them flee or adapt to human rights violations caused by climate change. Countless communities in the Pacific Islands and the Arctic have faced intensified natural disasters and the most severe temperature changes anywhere in the world, leading to shifts in weather patterns, seasons, and the distribution of habitable land, thereby forcing many people to flee their homelands. A family in the low-lying island of Kiribati sought refugee status in New Zealand, a coalition from the island Vanuatu requested a global financial assistance program for affected islands, Inuits in the Arctic have petitioned the United States for protection, and an Alaskan village has asked the US Supreme Court to compensate for damages.
These climate refugees face similar challenges to refugees of political crises in that they must flee their homes; however, they do not fall within the technical United Nations definition of a refugee and thus receive no legal protections from the international community. The foundational UN human rights documents were written in the post-World War II and Cold War eras, and thus reflect Western political interests and memories of Nazi-era persecution, when a refugee was often an individual hoping to flee a communist country. The UN definition still reflects this vision; however, today’s refugees are much more likely to be fleeing civil wars or natural disasters than communist regimes. As a result, many communities who need to flee dangerous situations in their homelands resulting from climate change are unable to get support from the international community. New Zealand denied the Kiribati family refugee status, the request for financial assistance in Vanuatu was ignored, the US did not address the petition from the Alaskan village, and the Supreme Court refused to hear the Inuit case.
Amending this definition to protect today’s refugees should be a central subject of discussion in international climate negotiations. However, the most recent climate talks in Paris discounted the current effects of climate change as they looked to prevent future ones. Key planks of the agreement—emission limits aiming to keep global temperature increases under 1.5 degrees Celsius, financial pledges from developed to developing countries, and mechanisms to keep track of compliance—do little to address current human rights violations resulting from existing changes to the climate. No matter how well countries limit their emissions, the hundreds of thousands who have been displaced from low-lying islands in the Pacific will still need new homes.
The only nod to the current effects of climate change comes in Section 115 of the agreement, which “strongly urges developed country Parties” to jointly raise USD 100 billion annually by 2020 for “mitigation and adaptation.” This clause, while setting a laudable goal, is not enforceable and does not specify how the money should be distributed. It also relies on developed countries to provide and allocate finances rather than giving developing or especially affected countries legal rights and processes through which they can advance their interests. Simply stated, climate refugees need legal protections to make real progress. The problem of transnational refugees, whether they are fleeing conditions arising from climate change or civil unrest, is international in nature.
Furthermore, the long-term objective of limiting emissions could be better achieved by increasing awareness of the implications of climate change. The circumstances faced by existing climate refugees highlight the ways in which climate change threatens basic human rights and quality of life and also sends a strong message to countries that may soon face similar problems. Acknowledging the current costs of climate change—ranging from natural disasters to relocation to loss of culture—by taking meaningful steps to protect vulnerable communities would make the global community more wary of contributing to climate change.
There are two broad approaches that the global community can take to uphold the human rights of victims of climate change and hold perpetrators accountable: enhancing international human rights treaties and providing financial assistance to compensate for relocation and damages. A strategy aimed at bolstering international standards to include groups of people currently excluded from refugee status could amend the United Nations definition of a refugee to include environmental refugees, either by fitting them within the existing framework or by re-thinking the characterization of refugees entirely. However, the biggest problem with most international human rights treaties is enforcement. Many human rights treaties, whether described as binding or non-binding, are seen as aspirational: people have rights in theory but not in practice.
This is why any internationally focused solution must be accompanied by tangible reforms such as financial compensation and carbon emission reductions. Organizations such as the World Bank and wealthy countries such as the United States must create systems through which communities forced to leave their homelands due to climate change can receive financial assistance. Alternatively, the global community could create policies that require fossil fuel companies and governments who permit their reckless behavior to pay for damages such as the relocations of groups and even entire nations.
Right now, the largest carbon emitters are largely able to avoid the tragic consequences of rising temperatures and sea levels, as the most noticeable consequences of climate change are currently occurring in the Pacific Islands and the Arctic. Despite emerging signs of climate change in wealthy countries, governments and corporations have typically had the privilege of ignoring climate change. But without significant changes to the functioning of global political and economic systems, human rights violations resulting from climate change will become tragically obvious to all.
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