Climate Change – Amnesty International

Why is our leaders’ inaction on climate change a human rights issue?

Climate change is intimately linked with human rights because of its effect on not just the environment but our own well-being – and ultimately our survival.

World leaders – especially from higher income countries with the greatest historical responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions – are failing in their legal obligation to curb climate change and help us adapt to the change that has already occurred. If they don’t act quickly, the effects of a warming planet will continue to grow and worsen over time, creating ruin for current and future generations.

This is why the failure of our governments to act on the climate crisis, in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence, may well be the biggest intergenerational human rights violation in history.

Corporations are also responsible for respecting human rights. Yet many businesses, especially fossil fuel companies, are ducking their responsibilities to fatal effect by continuing to extract, process, sell and burn fossil fuels. They also spread disinformation about climate change and trumpet the few minor improvements they have made as evidence of their ‘green credentials’.

Climate change and the right to life

We all have the right to life, and to live in freedom and safety. But climate change threatens the life and safety of billions of people on this planet. The most obvious example is extreme weather-related events, such as storms, floods and wildfires.

But there are many other less visible ways that climate change threatens lives. The World Health Organization predicts that climate change will cause 250,000 deaths per year between 2030 and 2050.

Climate change and the right to health

We all have the right to enjoy the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), major health impacts of human-induced climate change will include;

• Greater risk of injury
• disease and death due to things like more intense heat waves and fires
• increased risk of undernutrition as a result of diminished food production
• increased risks of diseases from food water and vector-borne diseases

People, and particularly children, exposed to traumatic events such as natural disasters – exacerbated by climate change – can suffer from post-traumatic stress disorders.

Extracting and burning fossil fuels also hurts us beyond the impact of climate. There is compelling scientific evidence that directly links exposure to air pollution to over 1.2 million deaths in 2020 alone. Burning fossil fuels and making petrochemicals not only produces air pollution, but the global heating that results makes air pollution worse.

Climate change and the right to housing

We all have a right to an adequate standard of living for ourselves and our families, including adequate housing.

But unless governments do more to help stop further climate change, extreme weather events such as floods and wildfires will continue to destroy people’s homes and leave them displaced. Drought can also lead to significant adverse changes in the environment while sea-level rises threaten the homes of millions of people around the world in low-lying territories.

People are already being displaced by climate change, for example in Tabasco, Mexico, where rising sea levels are wiping out entire communities.

Climate change and the rights to water and sanitation

We all have the right to safe water and to sanitation that ensures we stay healthy.

But continued inaction by governments and corporations has brought us to the point where melting snow and ice, reduced rainfall, higher temperatures and rising sea-levels threaten the quality and quantity of water resources. Already 785 million people do not have access to a source of water or sanitation that is likely to be safe. Climate change will make this worse.