World Environment Day: Why protecting rights in climate emergencies is important

A devastating floodthe retraction of a glacier that leaves a population without water, the lack of public policies in response to the heat wavesinaction in the face of threats to environmental defenders and failure to comply with commitments in the Paris Agreement are some of the causes that could start a national and international trial.

Recognition of the environment as a right A few years ago, it inaugurated the possibilities for citizens to demand before the courts the actions that governments should exercise by themselves.

Last week, just a few days before World Environment Daya series of hearings before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) took a new step in the face of this new conquest of civil society: that, given the climate emergency, the environment are considered human rights.

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) requested to treat the climate emergency as a human rights issue (Illustrative Image Infobae)

As extreme weather events become more frequent and intense, citizens around the world are questioning the ability of democratic states and governments to protect them from what appears to be an apocalyptic future. In this scenario, the IACHR is called to play a central role.

The recent tragedy in southern Brazil has highlighted the human dimension – for current and future generations – that comes with the challenge of facing the consequences of the climate emergency. The proliferation of droughts, floods, landslides and fires, among others, highlight the need to respond urgently and effectively.

“In this sense, the human rights “Not only do they provide a necessary perspective to evaluate the consequences of the emergency, but they offer fundamental tools to seek timely, fair, equitable and sustainable solutions to it,” states the document in which Colombia and Chile They requested that these advisory opinions be finalized in Brazil last week. Human rights obligations can provide critical guidance to accelerate effective responses in a fair, equitable and sustainable manner.”

The recent tragedy in Porto Alegre, Brazil, highlights the human implications of climate change (EFE/Daniel Marenco)

“The intervention of the Court is novel and transcendent. Human rights treaties do not incorporate the environment as a right to protect, so the interventions of this type of courts based on what the right to the environment has meant in United Nations“, the recognition in Europe and the Escazú Agreement, which is a fundamental link between the environment and human rights, is a path that closes the circle that had been widely demanded historically,” he explained. Andrés Napoliexecutive director of the Environment and Natural Resources Foundation.

Viviana Krsticevicexecutive director of Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL) believes that it is a transcendental step: “An advisory opinion is a manual, a very comprehensive roadmap that will tell the states of the region (not just Chile and Colombia) what to take into account when protecting the set of human rights in the context of the climate crisis.”

The IACHR resolution, which is expected to be presented at the end of the year, will guide States on how to act in the face of climate emergencyand can serve as a guide for civil society and academia.

The inaction of States in the face of heat waves highlights the lack of public policies (Illustrative image Infobae)

The process included 260 contributions from around 600 organizations of civil society, together with those of experts in international law. And the interventions addressed topics such as climate science, access to justice, the human rights of defenders of the environmentchildren and future generations, climate migration and displacement.

Presentations were also made on the effects of climate change on indigenous groups and ways to protect their human rights. Lucía Xiloj, a Mayan Quiché lawyer from Guatemala, asked the Court to consider that “environmental defenders are increasingly vulnerable in the context of the climate emergency, and that the criminalization of defenders is a violation of human rights that must be disappear”.

Scientists were also present before the Court and placed special emphasis on the importance of maintaining the limit of the average temperature increase in 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels, and the need for States to rapidly decarbonize and reduce short-lived climate pollutants.

International audiences highlight the urgency of reducing short-lived climate pollutants (Illustrative Image Infobae)

Short-lived climate pollutants or superpollutants (such as methane and the hydrofluorocarbons used in refrigeration equipment) remain in the atmosphere for less time than the carbon dioxidebut they are powerfully responsible for global warming.

In Latin America, the three main activities that generate this type of gases are: agricultural activity, the combustion of fossil fuels and waste.

In October of last year, a hearing was held before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). The lawsuit had been filed in 2020 by young people between 11 and 24 years old who live in various areas of Portugal affected by a serious heat wave and forest fires in 2017. An episode that caused 109 deaths and left thousands of hectares burned.

Young people argue that the policies of the 32 nations of the European Union are inadequate. They claim that the inaction of governments violates their human rights: their right to life, their right not to suffer inhuman or degrading treatment, their right to privacy and family life and their right not to suffer discrimination. They seek that the judges issue a binding ruling that forces countries to rapidly increase their emissions reductions.

The forest fires in Portugal in 2017 caused 109 deaths and left thousands of hectares devastated (EFE/ANTONIO COTRIM/File)

While waiting for the resolution of that court, Nápoli details: “From the point of view of the countries, I believe that (the schismatic litigation) is enhanced by the Paris Agreement that establishes obligations of the countries, which, although not binding, are For this treaty, they are within the countries, which is why compliance with these climate obligations can begin to be demanded.”

The Global Climate Litigation Report shows that they went from 884 in 2017 to 2,180 in 2022. Although the majority of cases occurred in the United States, the Climate trials are gaining momentum around the world and about 17% of cases are now reported in developing countries, including small island developing States.

Key climate litigation cases and issues covered in the report include:

• The conclusion adopted, for the first time, by the UN Human Rights Committee that a country had violated international legislation on this matter due to its climate policy and its lack of action in this area, considering that the Australian Government had failed to fulfill its obligations to the inhabitants of the Torres Strait Islands.
• Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court ruled that the Paris Agreement is a human rights treaty that enjoys “supranational” status.
• A court in the Netherlands ordered the oil company Shell to comply with the Paris Agreement and reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 45% by 2030 compared to 2019 levels. Indeed, this is the first time that a court considers that a private company is subject to an obligation under the international agreement.
• A court in Germany annulled certain parts of the Federal Climate Protection Act (KSG) as incompatible with the rights to life and health.
• A Paris court ruled that France’s lack of climate action and failure to meet its carbon budget targets has caused climate-related ecological damage.
• A UK court ruled that the local government was failing to meet its legal obligations under the Climate Change Act 2008, when the country ratified its net zero emissions strategy.

A new observatory in Argentina will monitor the implementation of the first regional treaty, Escazú Agreement, in defense of activists and access to environmental information (PHOTO: Colombian Ministry of Environment)

Latin America has the sad record of murders of environmental defenders. Colombia has led that ranking for several years. According to a report from Global Witness, almost nine out of every ten homicides recorded in 2022 were in the region. He Escazú Agreement is he first regional treaty that seeks to protect the rights of defenders, as well as guarantee the right to environmental information.

In that sense, today the Observatory for the Implementation of the Escazú Agreement in Argentina. The project is carried out by the Environment and Natural Resources Foundation (FARN) together with the Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS), the Center for Public Policies for Socialism (CEPPAS), CAUCE Foundation, Foundation for the Development of Sustainable Policies ( FUNDEPS); Sustainability Without Borders; the Environmental Law Center (CEDAF); the Citizen Association for Human Rights; the Argentine Association of Environmental Lawyers (AAdAA); Collective Conscious; the Meulen Project and CONICET.

“These initiatives are important, especially in countries where expressions that deny climate change, and environmental issues in general, govern; denialists of complex human rights situations. This will help make visible the situations that exist, the conflicts that communities have and the problems in exercising rights that sectors in vulnerable situations have in a context of governments that cover up this problem,” said Nápoli.

Source: Infobae

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