Climate Justice: Challenge and Opportunity

Abstract

Climate Justice: Challenge and Opportunity* Mary Robinson President,Mary Robinson Foundation-Climate Justice INTRODUCTION It is a pleasure to returnagain thisevening to the Royal Irish Academy as you hold your finalevent of the year. As an Honorary Member of thisinstitution, which promotes study and excellence in the sciences, humanities and social sciences,I am verypleased to have been invitedto speak on thechallenges and opportunitiesof climatejustice. As some of you will know, I have recentlycome home to Ireland and have created a Foundation, which will have a focus on climatejustice.1It is good to be home,particularlyat thisdifficult time,and to bringsome of theexperienceI have gained as UN High Commissioner forHuman Rights, and for the past eight years as presidentof Realizing Rights,2to bear on how Ireland can give leadership on the human rights and humanitarian dimensions of climate change. In Realizing Rightswe workedwitha range of partnersto place human rightsat theheart of global policy-making,and to amplifythevoices of people impoverished,vulnerableand marginalised,especiallyin Africa. We emphasised economic and social rights, and we focused principally on development challenges, for example, how to ensure everyone has the rightto health and the rightto decent workopportunities.We looked at how to strengthen private sector responsibility for human rights, and women's leadership on human rights,peace and securityissues. By 2007 we realised that therewas a topic that,as an initiativefocusingon human rightsand development,we could not ignore:climate change. What we began to do was communicate broadly that climate change is arguably the greatest human-rightsthreat that will face humankind. We also helped to connect human rights and climate change through the concept of climate justice. This paper wasoriginally delivered attheRoyal Irish Academy inDublin, on20December 2010, as thefinal Academy Discourse for theyear. 'Detailsofthework oftheFoundation areavailable at:http://www.mrfcj.org (1 September 2011). -Detailsof theworkof Realizing Rightsare availableat: http://www.realizingrights.org (8 September 2011). Author's e-mail: info@mrfcj.org Irish Studies inInternational Affairs , Vol.22(2011),67-74. doi: 10.33 18/ISIA.20 11.22.67 68 IrishStudiesinInternational Affairs Climate justice links human rightsand development to achieve a humancenteredapproach , safeguardingthe rightsof the most vulnerable and sharing the burdens and benefitsof climate change and its resolution equitably and fairly. Climate justice amplifiesthe voices of those people who have done least to cause climate change, but who are most severelyaffected.A way to conceive of it is to ask the question: Who will carrythe costs of climate change? These costs are not only thedamage to infrastructure, livelihoods and lives caused by changingweatherpatterns.They also include thecosts of havingto limitgrowth and development ifwe remainon our fossil-fuel-intensive path, particularlyfor poor communities and poor countries. Thus, climate justice brings into focus not just the enormous threatswe face today, but the threatswe will face for generationsto come. The Global Humanitarian Forum's Human Impact Report, The anatomyof a silentcrisis,launched in May 2009, triedto estimate the negative impacts of climatechange on people.3The reportclaims thatabout 300 million people are severelyaffectedby climate change, at a total economic cost of over US$100 billion annually. More than 500 million people are livingin extremerisk,and more than 20 millionhave already been displaced. The reportpoints to thenew phenomenon of climate refugees,which is already happening in a small way; but the numberof such refugeescould reach 200 million by 2050. The report'sprojectionsare grim:20 yearsfromnow worldwidedeaths could reach 500,000 per year;people affectedbyclimatechange annually are expected to rise to more than 600 million; and the total annual economic cost will increase to around US$300 billion. Climate change will raise temperatures, change precipitationpatternsand the distributionof water,threatenbiodiversity ,raise the sea level, increase flooding and storm surges, threatenunique systems such as coral reefs, and cause large-scale 'singularities' such as the melting of ice shelves. These changes in the natural environment are increasinglyimpacting on humans: leading to an increase in water insecurity and thetimerequired to collect water;changes in agriculturalproductivityand food insecurity,with a loss of livelihoods and effectson the wider economy. There are health risks, such as malnutrition,water-borne and vector-borne diseases and deaths from natural disasters. There will be effectson human settlements and on land use patterns, and displacement and involuntary migration.Not only...