NATIONAL PEOPLES' TRIBUNAL ON CLIMATE CHANGE

November 16th, 2010New Delhi, IndiaThe National peoples Tribunal will develop Peoples jurisprudence on climate change. Despite the deficient legal framework on climate change laws, increasing number of action in courts in different countries prove that there are enough provisions in the Public and private international law and domestic legislations to attempt bring accountability on the national governments to protect people from the climate change impacts. The most popular case in point is Inuit’s case where indigenous people bordering USA and...

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HUMAN RIGHTS AND CLIMATE CHANGE - III

RIGHT TO ADEQUATE HOUSING   Observed and projected climate change will affect the right to adequate housing in several ways. Sea level rise and storm surges will have a direct impact on many coastal settlements. Settlements in low-lying deltas are also particularly at risk, as evidenced by the millions of people and homes affected by flooding in recent years. The erosion of livelihoods, partly caused by climate change, is a main “push” factor for increasing rural to urban migration. Many will move to urban slums and informal settlements...

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HUMAN RIGHTS AND CLIMATE CHANGE - II

RIGHT TO WATERLoss of glaciers and reductions in snow cover are projected to increase and to negatively affect water availability for more than one-sixth of the world’s population supplied by meltwater from mountain ranges. Weather extremes, such as drought and flooding, will also impact on water supplies. Climate change will thus exacerbate existing stresses on water resources and compound the problem of access to safe drinking water, currently denied to an estimated 1.1 billion people globally and a major cause of morbidity and disease. In this...

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HUMAN RIGHTS AND CLIMATE CHANGE-I

RIGHT TO LIFE   A number of observed and projected effects of climate change will pose direct and indirect threats to human lives. IPCC AR4 projects with high confidence an increase in people suffering from death, disease and injury from heat-waves, floods, storms, fires and droughts. Equally, climate change will affect the right to life through an increase in hunger and malnutrition and related disorders impacting on child growth and development; cardio-respiratory morbidity and mortality related to ground-level ozone. Climate change...

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UNDERSTANDING CLIMATE CHANGE AND ITS IMPACT

The detection of climate change is the process of demonstrating that an observed change is significantly different from what can be explained by natural variability. It does not necessarily imply that its causes are understood. The climate change can be attributed to anthropogenic causes and at the same time there are non-climate drivers such as land use, land degradation, urbanisation and pollution, affect systems directly and indirectly through their effects on climate. The socio-economic processes that drive land-use change include population...

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HUMAN RIGHTS FRAMEWORK AND CLIMATE CHANGE

(Based on the Report Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights A/HRC/10/6, 15 January 2009)The physical impacts of global warming cannot easily be classified as human rights violations, not least because climate change-related harm often cannot clearly be attributed to acts or omissions of specific States.Irrespective of whether or not climate change effects can be construed as human rights violations, human rights obligations provide imprtant protection to the individuals whose rights are affected by climate change or by...

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