Feature Story

Technology may prevent the worst climate scenarios, but how do we adapt now?

Anonymous — Mon, 24 Oct 2022 21:14:25 +0000

Technology may prevent the worst climate scenarios, but how do we adapt now? Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 10/24/2022 - 15:14

Lisa Marshall

“The reality is, we have already warmed the planet a lot and we need to be thinking about a world where climate-related disruptions are the new steady state.”

—Lori Peek

Ask a room full of experts for their solutions on addressing the climate crisis, and talk of promising new technologies often takes center stage.

Indeed, things like expanded solar and wind power and alternative transportation systems will play a critical role in mitigating some of the worst-case scenarios a warming planet could bring. But for those already living those scenarios, the time to adapt is now. It’s often the quieter, grass-roots strategies—like implementing new farming practices, financially empowering women and including the most vulnerable when making plans for the future—that can have a big impact, experts say.

According to a new survey by the World Economic Forum, more than half of adults on the planet believe climate change has already had a severe impact on their part of the world, and 35% fear it may force them from their homes in the next 25 years. In 2020 alone, weather-related events displaced 30 million people.

“The reality is, we have already warmed the planet a lot and we need to be thinking about a world where climate-related disruptions are the new steady state,” said sociologist Lori Peek, director of the Natural Hazards Center at the ��«��Ƶ. “Technical fixes are important, but they can only get us so far. We need social fixes, too.”

Empowering the vulnerable

For Constance Okollet, summit panelist and founder of the Osokura United Women Network, that means empowering women, who, as the traditional family caregivers in many areas, tend to bear the brunt of climate change impacts.

Constance Okollet. Image credit: Edward Echwalu

“The woman is the engine of the home,” Okollet said via Zoom from her home in Asinget village, Uganda. “If you want something to change, look to the woman.”

Three-quarters of Uganda’s population relies on subsistence agriculture, with farmers using the money from selling surplus crops to pay for basics like children’s school fees and medicine. When crops fail, the effects ripple.

Across sub-Saharan Africa, already the world’s most food-insecure region, climate change is making things worse.

“When I was growing up, we had good yields and times were good,” recalled Okollet, a 58-year-old mother of seven.

Now, people must travel long distances for water, and scorching droughts are followed by floods that wash away crops. Every season is a gamble.

“Now, there is no food,” she said. “People go to sleep hungry. People are dying.”

She helped establish the Osokura United Women Network in the late 2000s, after lethal floods washed away crops, livestock and homes in her own village. At the time, she didn’t know what climate change was. When she learned that pollution from industrialized nations was essentially killing her neighbors, she was stunned. People in her region didn’t cause the problem, but she had ideas on how to help solve it.

With about 2,000 members, the group sends participants across the region to educate their neighbors about climate change and how to adapt. They teach them how to pool and save money so they can survive when crops fail, start small businesses, and manage their farmland in ways that make it more resilient.

Meanwhile, Okollet travels the world encouraging policymakers to invest in and replicate grassroots programs like hers.

2,000 miles to the south, in Johannesburg, panelist Ndivile Mokoena, project coordinator for Gender CC Southern Africa, takes a similar approach. The organization brings women from different regions and generations together to learn from one another about how to handle new pests, extended dry spells or torrential rains in their kitchen gardens or farms.

If a particular seed isn’t working in one area anymore but working in another, they trade.

They teach one another how to preserve and can, so if there is no harvest, they have food to live on. They learn how to get credit or even buy their own land, a practice once unheard of due to patriarchal traditions. And they learn how to engage in the political process.

“We are teaching them to be a part of the dialogue around climate change, so that no decisions are made about them without them,” Mokoena said.

Jola Ajibade

Rethinking home

Some models project that as many as 340 million people in coastal areas could be displaced by rising sea waters by 2050.

For many of these communities, adaptation will mean picking up and permanently leaving home.

To ensure that relocation is successful and just, policymakers around the world should be making plans now, inviting communities to talk about what this migration might look like, said Jola Ajibade, an associate professor of geography at Portland State University who studies managed retreat due to climate change.

In one recent analysis of 138 case studies of relocations, she concluded that just 46% were successful. All of the relocations came with unintended consequences.

In one case in Lagos, where Ajibade is from, about 30,000 people were violently forced out of a coastal community with guns and teargas, with no place to go. In several instances, often in poor communities in developing countries, top-down government plans have moved people from one threat, such as sea level rise, to another, drought or landslides. Often, people are moved to new communities to find the houses poorly built, and no access to transportation or cultural touchstones, like churches or burial grounds.

In contrast, the paper points to the Blue Acres buyout program in New Jersey as, in many ways, a standout model to improve community resilience amid a changing climate. Established in 1995, it offers homeowners pre-disaster market value for their properties while extending relocation assistance to renters. Vacated land is converted into parks. And community members are largely driving the process. Blue Acres has purchased over 700 properties statewide and negotiated nearly $6 million in debt relief for people owing more than their home is worth, Ajibade reported.

“A paradigm shift in retreat policies, planning and implementation is urgently needed,” she wrote, noting that such success stories are the exception, particularly in the developing world.

Ajibade’s advice to policymakers: “Start talking to communities now, long before deciding whether relocation is the appropriate adaptation, about what that would look like. And make sure the most vulnerable people’s voices are not just heard, but taken seriously.”

Lori Peek

Building community resilience

Relocation plans aside, nearly every community must face the fact that natural disasters are now a norm, not an exception, Peek said.

“The single most important thing we can do is invest in our community before the next disaster comes,” she said.

That means, in addition to making buildings and infrastructure stronger, making our social fabric stronger.

“There is growing recognition that these events are not ‘great equalizers,’” Peek said. “People at the margins suffer first and worst.”

Peek encourages communities to develop communication strategies to ensure that everyone, including the elderly, children and people with disabilities, knows how to get out when disaster comes, and plans to be sure schoolchildren can continue to learn (and ideally stay connected with one another) if evacuated.

Peek also said she hopes to see policy changes that support people, both socially and financially, if they can’t return home.

“Our whole structure of recovery has been predicated on people recovering in the places where they were, but what if those places are no longer safe?” Peek said. “Those are the kinds of discussions we need to be having—questioning the whole basis of disaster recovery.”

Another way to become more resilient to climate change: Get to know your neighbors. You may need their help someday.

“If we are ever going to come up with real solutions, it’s going to be through mutual connections and investments in this one great planet that we call home,” Peek said.

Ask a room full of experts for their solutions on addressing the climate crisis, and talk of promising new technologies often takes center stage.

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Top 4 promising solutions by sector to fight rising emissions

Anonymous — Thu, 20 Oct 2022 15:20:53 +0000

Top 4 promising solutions by sector to fight rising emissions Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 10/20/2022 - 09:20

Kelsey Simpkins

—Martin Keller

Mitigating climate change by significantly reducing carbon emissions this decade will require big transitions in all sectors, from energy and transportation to construction and industry. But significant reductions in global emissions are possible, and the payoffs will be far-reaching, experts say.

Affordable electricity from renewable sources like solar and wind could provide 65% of the world’s total electricity supply by 2030 and remove 90% of carbon emissions from the power sector by 2050, according to the United Nations.

With the right policies, infrastructure and technology in place, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced by up to 70% globally by 2050—and in the process improve the health of the planet and its people.

“It won’t be easy, but we have done this before, when we first built out the grid,” said Martin Keller, director of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and president of the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, the company that operates NREL for the US Department of Energy.

The global transition to clean energy will require a new level of collaboration by many diverse sectors, creating both challenges and win-wins, he said. Meanwhile, meeting increased demand for clean energy would kick-start economies and improve equality and equity around the world.

“New technology can not only be a tremendous opportunity for rural communities and underserved communities here in the US, but for many other countries this can be a new way for them to build out their opportunities,” said Keller, who will join the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Summit at CU ��«��Ƶ as a panelist on Day 3: Solutions. “We have to make sure that in the energy transition, we bring everybody along.”

Here's a snapshot of shifts underway, and the promise they hold:

Electricity

The most promising solutions in the electrical sector are something we already have: renewable energy technologies, mainly wind and solar power. Between 2010 and 2020 alone, the cost of solar-powered energy fell 85%, and the cost of wind energy fell by about half, according to the UN.

Wind and solar power use also increased tenfold during this time, accounting for 1% of total electricity production globally a decade ago, compared with 10% in 2021.

Increasing capacity to meet higher demand will be a big lift, Keller said. But it’s already underway in the US, thanks to declining costs and the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act, which heavily funds the acceleration of clean energy and the decarbonization of energy systems.

There are suddenly many tax incentives to drive the market toward this, and experts like Keller expect to see a huge increase on the employment side for wind, solar and renewables.

Switching to renewables can also build resilience in communities hurt by climate change. For instance, when Babcock Ranch in southwest Florida—which bills itself as America’s first sustainable solar powered town—was hit by Hurricane Ian in September, residents’ lights stayed on, thanks to their 700,000-panel grid and underground utility lines.

Emerging countries can also benefit. In regions just beginning to build their electricity infrastructure, planners can move straight to renewables rather than having to adapt a system based on fossil fuels.

These countries can also capitalize on their natural resources and evolve into energy-exporting countries. Keller noted that the MENA region (Middle East and North Africa) has a lot of sun, and Chile and Patagonia have an abundance of wind. As about 6 billion people depend on importing fossil fuels from other countries, according to the UN, this diversification of global energy exporters can not only help meet demand but also stabilize economies and relations between nations.

Transportation

In car-dependent countries, reducing carbon emissions from commuter traffic represents a key challenge. According to the US Department of Transportation, transportation is the second largest source of total US greenhouse gas emissions, with gasoline and diesel-fueled vehicles accounting for about two-thirds of those emissions.

Public transportation like buses and trains moves people through cities more efficiently, reducing greenhouse gas emissions even when not at full capacity. Compared with private car use, public transit contributes only about half as much carbon to the atmosphere, and US estimates show that it saves 37 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually.

Besides investing more in public transportation, electric vehicles—whether electric cars or e-bikes—will be key to cutting emissions. Cost, however, soon won’t be as much of a problem.

Upwards of 130 million electric bicycles are expected to be sold worldwide between 2020 and 2023, with countries around the world now offering generous subsidies for residents to purchase them.

The technology is advancing at such a rapid speed that electric cars are expected to become cheaper than vehicles with combustion engines.

The Inflation Reduction Act also aims to entice battery manufacturers back to the US and increase domestic vehicle production—all moves that could bring costs down and speed up development worldwide. For diesel engines and long-distance transportation, researchers at universities, companies and labs across the country (like NREL) are working to turn them from fossil fuel machines into hydrogen engines.

But how will alternative fuels be transported? And how will the materials for creating all these batteries be sustainably sourced? There are still many details to figure out.

Answers to these questions and many more are being researched at NREL, as well as other national and international labs, institutes and academic collaborations.

The ASPIRE Engineering Research Center (Advancing Sustainability through Powered Infrastructure for Roadway Electrification) is one of them.

Led by Utah State University (with partner institutions including CU ��«��Ƶ, and researchers from Colorado State University, University of Colorado Colorado Springs and NREL), ASPIRE is exploring a diverse range of transportation questions. These include: How to electrify highways that can charge vehicles on the go; data security of and best placement for charging stations; and how to build the necessary workforce of engineers, policymakers, teachers, lawyers and collaborators in related fields.

Wil Srubar III holding a limestone algae concrete block

Buildings

The great indoors—or rather, where people around the world spend most of their modern lives—accounts for 230 billion square meters of building space globally, and billions more square meters could be added this decade. So what about all the carbon-intensive materials and emissions involved in construction?

Wil Srubar III, associate professor in Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering and CU ��«��Ƶ’s Materials Science and Engineering Program, is working to transform a notoriously polluting construction staple into a carbon-neutral and carbon-negative material: He’s developed concrete made out of limestone grown by algae and bricks that are part bacteria themselves.

“We see a world in which using concrete as we know it is a mechanism to heal the planet,” Srubar said. “We have the tools and the technology to do this today.”

Buildings are also, in general, becoming more efficient, with some state-of-the-art homes run completely on renewable energy.

A key question is whether innovation can keep up with increasing demand.

Industry

Mining, steel production and chemical manufacturing are some of the trickier sectors in which to reduce carbon emissions. Industry is directly responsible for more than 20% of all heat-trapping emissions, according to the IPCC. Heavy industry, including mining, shipbuilding and the aircraft industry, presents some of the biggest challenges. But a few companies are leading the way.

For example, mining giant Fortescue Metals announced plans in September to eliminate the use of fossil fuels from its iron ore operations by 2030, saying it will invest more than $9 billion building batteries and greening its fleet of machinery, vehicles and trains. And last year, Anglo-Australian mining company Rio Tinto proposed a $7.5 billion plan to cut its carbon emissions by half by 2030.

Alternative materials with lower emissions could also soon come to replace plastics and some metals, while waste could be reclaimed to help create a circular economy. Refrigerants—potent greenhouse gases that often leak during use or disposal—can also be better managed and disposed of. Machines can be electrified, and energy efficiency can be increased.

“Our lives are built around using energy,” said Lisa Dilling, professor of environmental studies at CU ��«��Ƶ and fellow at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), after the release of the IPCC report on climate change mitigation in April 2022. “But we have all these other options now that are cost effective. We don’t have to get it out of the ground anymore.”

While the dirty, carbon-producing energy source of coal still accounts for almost one-third of energy use—the single largest share of global capacity—and new coal plants are still being built in some parts of the world, the speed at which new coal is being added to the grid is slowing down.

“There is still a lot of work ahead of us,” Keller said. “But there is a new kind of excitement in this decarbonization effort which I have never seen before.”

Mitigating climate change by significantly reducing carbon emissions this decade will require big transitions in all sectors, from energy and transportation to construction and industry.

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How courts can help protect human rights amid climate change

Anonymous — Wed, 28 Sep 2022 19:27:05 +0000

How courts can help protect human rights amid climate change Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 09/28/2022 - 13:27

Clay Bonnyman Evans

Among the more notable cases in recent years:

In 2015, Asghar Leghari successfully sued the Pakistani government for violating its official climate change policy, catalyzing the creation of the country’s Climate Change Commission.
In 2019, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands upheld a 2015 decision in favor of the Urgenda Foundation, which required the government to reduce carbon emissions by 25%.
In 2020, the German Constitutional Court ordered the German legislature to strengthen and enforce existing climate legislation and widen pathways to future mitigation.
In February, four nongovernmental organizations prevailed in a case that found the French government failed to live up to its own carbon emissions target reductions.
In May, a court ordered Royal Dutch Shell to cut its greenhouse emissions by 45% by 2030, the first time courts have levied such a requirement on a private company.

“These efforts are not just piecemeal anymore. In Europe, this has really grown to be a widespread phenomenon.”

—Freerk Vermuelen

—Jonathan Skinner-Thompson

On Sept. 23, the United Nations Human Rights Committee found that the Australian government had violated the human rights of a group of Indigenous island residents known as “the Torres Strait 8” when it failed to adequately protect them from the impacts of climate change.

It was a potentially ground-breaking decision that many expect to pave the way for future cases.

“This decision marks a significant development, as the committee has created a pathway for individuals to assert claims where national systems have failed to take appropriate measures to protect those most vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change,” UNHRC committee member Hélène Tigroudja told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

The ruling is just the latest in a growing ledger of victories for people who are leveraging the power of litigation to force action on climate change around the world.

“There are lots and lots of examples nowadays that have been successful in pushing government to increase climate action,” said Maria Antonia Tigre, Global Climate Litigation fellow at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University. “This really has been growing exponentially over the past few years. There are now over 500 cases around the world in over 50 jurisdictions. This is really becoming a tool for climate activism.”

“These efforts are not just piecemeal anymore,” said Freerk Vermuelen, who represents Urgenda and will be a panelist at the upcoming Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Summit at the ��«��Ƶ on Dec. 1-4. “In Europe, this has really grown to be a widespread phenomenon.”

U.S. history and ‘fossil law’

In the United States, the situation is more complex. Climate cases have had a harder time gaining purchase in a legal system complicated by federalism, precedent and a history of what Ted Hamilton, co-founder of the Climate Defense Project, called “fossil law.”

“Judges and prosecutors tend to deploy their powers against climate justice advocates rather than against those degrading the climate,” he wrote in Beyond Fossil Law: Climate, Courts, and the Fight for a Sustainable Future. “By and large, our legal institutions have proven ill-equipped to seriously address climate change.”

In some cases, victories have proved Pyrrhic or been swallowed up by subsequent rulings and changes in enforcement priorities after a change in presidential administrations. Often, U.S. cases run aground on the shoals of jurisdictional interpretations (whether cases are matters for federal or state courts), the refusal of Congress to ratify emissions targets and climate agreements, and what Hamilton calls “industry capture,” a system in which the deck is stacked in favor of fossil fuel interests.

“In the United States, especially with the current (Supreme Court), you might suspect they’ll find a way to shut down all types of climate cases from activist individuals rather than those from industry,” said Jonathan Skinner-Thompson, associate professor of law at CU ��«��Ƶ and a former attorney for the Environmental Protection Agency.

In 2007’s Massachusetts v. EPA (“the preeminent U.S. climate change case,” according to Hamilton), the U.S. Supreme Court found that human-caused global warming was real and that carbon dioxide qualified as an “air pollutant.” But in 2016, the court halted a clean-power plan developed by the EPA, and the incoming Trump administration swiftly de-emphasized climate action. This year, the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA had gone too far in trying to regulate emissions in West Virginia v. EPA.

In Juliana v. United States, another case that initially encouraged climate activists, 21 youth plaintiffs represented by Oregon nonprofit Our Children’s Trust argued that their due-process rights of life, liberty and property were being violated by the government’s continued inaction on reducing fossil-fuel emissions.

Ruling against a government motion to dismiss the case, U.S. District Court Judge Ann Aiken accepted many of the plaintiffs’ claims and found that the government was culpable.

“I have no doubt that the right to a climate system capable of sustaining human life is fundamental to a free and ordered society,” Aiken wrote. “To hold otherwise would be to say that the Constitution affords no protection against a government’s knowing decision to poison the air its citizens breathe or the water its citizens drink.”

But U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts granted a stay in 2018 before the case could go to trial, and in 2020 the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the issue was a matter for the executive and legislative branches, not the courts.

For Skinner-Thompson, Juliana “was a pretty small win at the end of the day; I don’t think the plaintiffs saw it as a massive victory.” And he remains skeptical that litigation to force climate action will gain much traction in the United States in the foreseeable future.

“In the U.S., to the extent that people are trying to use state laws or federal laws, to use the courts themselves to implement change, I don’t think it will be successful,” Skinner-Thompson said. “The courts are not going to be the savior as they have been with civil rights. . . . It would be more efficient if the international community would come together with binding and meaningful (emissions) targets and act to address the problem.”

“Litigation is a slow tool, but it can be very effective. Every time there is a new decision from one country that really reaches the media and everyone is talking about it, it proves to be an effective tool to push countries. And I think everyone starts asking whether that case can be replicated in other jurisdictions.”

—Maria Antonia Tigre

Using the courts to force political change

However, given the global nature of the problem, legal successes in other countries and regions are almost certain to have a positive impact in the United States.

“Following these cases, the major emitters may have to change their practices to respond to cases like (Urgenda), even though there is not a comprehensive regulatory scheme established by treaty,” Skinner-Thompson said. “And with carbon emissions . . . spread pretty evenly across the globe, it really doesn’t matter where we get reductions. We’re still getting reductions, and that’s meaningful.”

Vermuelen agreed that courts are not where the climate fight will be won. But he said litigation remains a potent tool to catalyze political change.

“It belongs in the political arena, not the courtroom,” Vermuelen said. “But this type of litigation may be necessary to bring the politics onto the right track. . . . There is a role for the judiciary to complement democratic practices.”

And each legal victory can affect the way people around the world see the issue, Tigre said.

“Litigation is a slow tool, but it can be very effective,” Tigre said. “Every time there is a new decision from one country that really reaches the media and everyone is talking about it, it proves to be an effective tool to push countries. And I think everyone starts asking whether that case can be replicated in other jurisdictions.”

Though U.S. efforts to leverage litigation to force climate action have produced minimal fruit to date, Hamilton still believes that “courts are one of the best avenues we have to make climate justice a policy of the state.”

And, as international victories accumulate, Hamilton wrote, “it seems likely that in the coming years international bodies and some domestic courts will turn more and more to international agreements and national human rights instruments to hold governments’ feet to the fire.”

A growing number of legal cases around the world have proved successful in getting governments to commit to climate action, but in the U.S. barriers to this strategy remain.

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When it comes to addressing global climate impacts, who should pay?

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Sep 2022 22:05:14 +0000

When it comes to addressing global climate impacts, who should pay? Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 09/13/2022 - 16:05

Audrea Lim

Above image: Tropical Cyclone Winston in the South Pacific Ocean, west of Fiji. Credits: NASA Goddard MODIS Rapid Response Team/Jeff Schmaltz

David Boyd

“This is a human rights crisis of the greatest magnitude.”

—David Boyd

In 2016, Tropical Storm Winston hit the Pacific island of Fiji as the strongest recorded storm ever to make landfall in the Southern Hemisphere. It left $1.4 billion in damage, 131,000 people homeless and 44 dead.

“We lost everything,” a former village headman, Raivolita “Rai” Tabusoro, told the World Bank. “It was as if a bomb was dropped in the village.”

“Fiji is one of those countries that's really on the frontlines of the climate crisis,” said David Boyd, the UN special rapporteur on human rights and the environment, and a panelist in the inaugural Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Summit to be held Dec. 1–4 at the ��«��Ƶ.

Two years after the storm, Boyd visited the Fijian village of Vunidogoloa, one of the world’s first communities to relocate because of climate change—rising sea levels were contaminating drinking water and crops with saltwater. The decision had come from the villagers, not an edict from above. So had the decisions on where, when and how the relocation would transpire.

Boyd was impressed.

Fiji had done an “absolutely fantastic” job addressing the climate crisis through a human rights framework: accepting that all its people have a right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, along with a right to participate in any decisions surrounding it, Boyd said.

“Now, the $64,000 question is, ‘Who’s going to pay for that relocation?’” Boyd said. “Right now, it's the government of Fiji.”

With more than 50 of the nation’s communities awaiting relocation, Boyd said “that is an absolutely unjust and unsustainable outcome.”

“There absolutely should be funds flowing from the Global North to Fiji to finance those relocation efforts,” Boyd said. (“Global North” usually describes the wealthy and powerful nations of North America, Europe and Australia, and “Global South” signifies the less-developed countries in Latin America, Asia, Africa and Oceania).

Devastating floods, droughts and wildfires on virtually every continent are highlighting the grave human consequences of climate change: lost homes, lost lives, collapsed economies, entire countries submerged.

“This is a human rights crisis of the greatest magnitude,” Boyd added.

Yet the nations of the world are not equally responsible for the crisis.

A view of the inland relocated site of Vunidogoloa Village, Fiji.

Ying Chen

Roberto Sánchez-Rodríguez

Impacts on vulnerable populations

Poor communities and developing countries are disproportionately vulnerable to extreme weather and changing environments. As the costs of global climate action add up, there is growing consensus that the world’s polluters should foot most of the bill, and also growing debate about how that money can help to address climate disparities.

Who, for one, are the biggest polluters?

The most popular answer: the countries and regions emitting the most carbon today, a list topped by China, the US, the European Union and India.

But summit panelist Ying Chen, a professor of economics at The New School in New York City, sees this answer as too simplistic and ahistorical. Because carbon dioxide lingers in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, emissions from the Industrial Revolution are as harmful to the world today as the carbon emitted two years ago, Chen argued.

Taking into account this cumulative pollution, the early colonizers and countries in the Global North, like the nations of the G-7 in particular, are most responsible—they have generated at least 59% of historical emissions, Chen said. (The G-7 includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, US and EU.)

These wealthy nations have failed to meet a 2009 pledge to mobilize $100 billion annually in climate funding. But Chen believes they could afford it if they wanted to: The US would need to contribute 2% of its GDP to cover its share, compared with the 3.7% it spends on its military. It’s a political question and an issue of priorities, she said.

There is also debate about how the money should be spent.

Some Global North countries have begun to fund climate efforts in the Global South, but they invest according to their own agendas rather than the needs of the country, said summit panelist Roberto Sánchez-Rodríguez, an urban and environmental studies scholar in Mexico and the lead author of the latest report on climate impacts, adaptation and vulnerability for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Most of this money is dedicated to climate mitigation—reducing carbon emissions by, for instance, shifting to renewable energy—an important task for developing countries with fast-growing economies and energy consumption, like Brazil, Chile and China. But many developing countries, like Fiji, contribute a minuscule share of global carbon emissions, while just a single extreme weather event could have devastating consequences for decades, he said.

“These countries desperately need assistance for adaptation, more than mitigation,” Sánchez-Rodríguez said.

This was apparent to Sánchez-Rodríguez during the floods and heatwaves that recently battered Pakistan and India. Water infrastructure was inadequate, and improvements are desperately needed to prevent water shutoffs, improve sewage drainage and ensure that farms have adequate irrigation to maintain food supplies.

“One of the big problems is that climate change is still being addressed as an environmental challenge, when in reality it is a development problem,” he said.

Local residents fish in front of the abandoned site of the old Vunidogoloa Village, Fiji.

“We are looking at a world that is very fragmented and have a very small window of opportunity (to make a difference).”

—Roberto Sánchez-Rodríguez

Money alone is not enough

Yet direct funding alone is not enough to meet the challenges. Countries also need help—and additional funding—to build stronger institutions that are capable of preventing and responding to future disasters. Many lack even the basic ability to identify who is vulnerable, why they're vulnerable and where they're located, he said.

Without this data, climate investment could exacerbate inequalities within countries, and between them.

Chen has seen this in her research on China’s own climate investments—the nation is already a global leader in renewable energy, and the finance part is not a problem. Chinese companies installing solar panels and electricity grids, for instance, often employ migrant or temporary workers who are heavily exploited, Chen said.

Meanwhile, renewable energy manufacturing involves working with plastics and chemicals that can harm the health of workers. Without stronger labor and environmental protections across the globe, climate investment could benefit private companies and wealthier consumers at the expense of poor laborers. In funding climate actions, “we need to be very proactive in addressing inequalities and inequities,” Chen said, a task that requires global collaboration to enforce environmental regulations strictly everywhere possible.

For Sánchez-Rodríguez, international coordination is also sorely needed to ensure that climate funds are addressing the real needs of developing countries.

“We are looking at a world that is very fragmented and have a very small window of opportunity (to make a difference),” Sánchez-Rodríguez said.

Boyd said he sees some hope in one international agreement: a newly passed UN resolution recognizing a healthy environment as a basic human right, like clean water and shelter. This approach to the climate crisis not only focuses our attention on the people who are suffering,it requires states to reduce emissions, increase adaptation, and pay poorer nations for loss and damages.

With floods, droughts, fires and superstorms battering every continent, the Global South is going to use every tool at its disposal to hold the Global North accountable, Boyd said. Hopefully, Boyd said, “the resolution is a catalyst for change.”

In 2016, Tropical Storm Winston hit the Pacific island of Fiji as the strongest recorded storm ever to make landfall in the Southern Hemisphere.

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By the numbers: The effect of climate change on human rights

Anonymous — Mon, 08 Aug 2022 14:01:35 +0000

By the numbers: The effect of climate change on human rights Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 08/08/2022 - 08:01

Health

Between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause approximately 250,000 additional deaths each year from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea and heat stress, according to the World Health Organization.

Home

In 2020, 30 million people were displaced because of weather-related disasters, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. By 2050, as many as 216 million people could move within their own countries due to slow-onset climate change, according to the World Bank.

Peace

Of the 25 countries deemed most vulnerable to climate change, 14 are already mired in conflict. Climate change can increase risk of conflict by depleting resources, including water for people and livestock, and exacerbating social and economic tensions. Meanwhile, those already fleeing conflict often end up in countries where natural disasters are common, worsening their hardship. Highly climate vulnerable countries host 40% of refugees and are home to 70% of people internally displaced by conflict or violence.

Self-determination

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), climate change is causing extreme weather, drought, flooding and other disasters, depriving millions of people around the world of a livelihood. The nearly 78% of the world’s poor— 800 million people—who live in rural areas, many of whom rely on agriculture, forestry and fisheries for their survival, are particularly affected. Without urgent action, climate change could push an additional 100 million people into poverty by 2030, according to the World Bank.

Food

Climate change not only hampers productivity of crops, livestock, fisheries and aquaculture, it also influences the frequency of extreme weather events and natural hazards, which can wipe out food sources and impair supply chains. According to the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report, nearly 750 million people experienced severe food insecurity in 2019, and the number of undernourished or food-insecure people is rising, with climate shocks a major contributor.

Culture

For the 4 million inhabitants of the Arctic, and the 680 million people who live in low-lying coastal areas, climate change poses not only an immediate and direct threat to their survival, but to the survival of their cultures.

Water

More than 2 billion people live in countries with “high water stress” or lack of access to fresh water. Almost twice as many could be affected by 2050. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates that, by 2040, one in four children—around 600 million—will live in areas of extremely high-water stress.

Source: https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Publications/FSheet38_FAQ_HR_CC_EN.pdf

Climate change is affecting human rights around the world in significant ways. From health to food and self-determination, here are a few statistics and facts about these impacts that further demonstrate the need for coordinated action.

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How a human rights approach to climate change can spark real change

Anonymous — Fri, 05 Aug 2022 19:45:45 +0000

How a human rights approach to climate change can spark real change Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 08/05/2022 - 13:45

Lisa Marshall

Sheila Watt-Cloutier

James Anaya

Mary Robinson

On Dec. 7, 2005, Canadian-born mother and grandmother Sheila Watt-Cloutier filed a 163-page petition with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights arguing that the impacts of climate change violated the “fundamental human rights” of Indigenous Inuit people like her across the Arctic.

“It is the responsibility of the United States, as the largest source of greenhouse gases, to take immediate and effective action to protect the human rights of the Inuit,” the petition read. The commission ultimately declined to hear the case.

But Watt-Cloutier’s bold move helped kick-start what many describe as a sea change in how the international community thinks about climate change. Rather than center conversations around the science behind it or the economics and politics of addressing it, as had been the norm for decades, Watt-Cloutier and a new brand of climate justice advocates took a different approach. They framed climate change not as a distant, abstract concern but as a current human rights crisis that disproportionately impacts marginalized communities. Thus, they made the case that government and industry are duty-bound to respect and protect those rights in the face of climate change.

“Before that time, at nearly every meeting I attended, they were talking about polar bears and ice,” said Cloutier, who will present a keynote speech at the upcoming Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Summit on the CU ��«��Ƶ campus. “To put a human face to the issue was really important.”

Two years later, a small group of island states led by the Maldives joined forces to adopt the Malé Declaration, the first intergovernmental statement that “climate change has clear and immediate implications for the full enjoyment of human rights.” The next year, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted the first of what became a series of resolutions linking climate change to human rights.

In February 2020, UN Secretary General António Guterres proclaimed unequivocally: “The climate crisis is the biggest threat to our survival as a species and is already threatening human rights around the world.”

In framing it this way, climate justice advocates say they gain more leverage in both the court of public opinion and the court of law, and better assure that as policymakers set out to craft solutions, those most affected by climate change (but often least responsible for it) have a seat at the table.

“Viewing climate change through a human rights lens brings to the fore the urgency of the problem and helps us to focus on what it is really about—human beings and our survival,” said James Anaya, a university Distinguished Professor and professor of international law at CU ��«��Ƶ, and the lead of three co-chairs for the climate summit.

The toll on human rights

In 1948, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which guarantees that all human beings are entitled to a social and international order in which their rights and freedoms can be fully realized.

Those rights include the right to health, food, housing, life and culture.

Climate change threatens all of them, and the Indigenous people of the Arctic, which has warmed much faster than any other region of the globe, were among the first to feel it, Watt-Cloutier explained.

In the village of Shishmaref, Alaska, where people have been living, hunting and fishing for 2,000 years, melting sea ice is swallowing homes. Roads built on once-sturdy permafrost are sinking as it thaws. Hunters who have traveled across the ice for centuries now face the danger of breaking through it. Seals and polar bears that depend on the ice are moving farther out, threatening food supplies. Thinning ozone and increased ultraviolet exposure have boosted reports of skin cancer and cataracts.

Erosion next to houses in Shishmaref, Alaska

Aerial view of Shishmaref, Alaska

“We are the most adaptable people in the world. We invented the kayak. We can build a home made of snow that is warm enough for a mother to birth in. We are teachers, not victims. I believe Indigenous wisdom is the medicine the world seeks.”

—Sheila Watt-Cloutier

Inuit culture is also under threat, said Watt-Cloutier, as hunting traditions in the Arctic come with key lessons about resiliency, coping, patience and boldness.

“Our culture is based on the ice, the snow and the cold. That's who we are,” said Watt -Cloutier, author of The Right to Be Cold: One Woman’s Fight to Protect the Arctic and Save the Planet from Climate Change.

Elsewhere around the globe, the human toll of climate change became apparent to Mary Robinson, then the UN high commissioner for human rights in the early 2000s. “No matter where I went, I kept hearing variations on the same phrase: ‘But things are so much worse now,’” she wrote in her 2019 bestseller, Climate Justice: Hope, Resilience and the Fight for a Sustainable Future.

Robinson, the former president of Ireland, who will deliver a keynote speech at the climate summit in ��«��Ƶ, recalls farmers in Africa whose harvests failed to arrive or whose crops and villages were washed away by floods.

“In the past, I had seen images of stranded polar bears and the disappearance of ancient glaciers, but these stories from the frontlines of climate change suddenly began to match the scientific findings I was reading about,” Robinson wrote.

Anaya is quick to note that while the ravages of climate change are now being felt globally—including in ��«��Ƶ, which has been hit by devastating floods and fires in recent years—women, people with disabilities, Indigenous peoples, children and other marginalized groups tend to feel the brunt.

“A human rights approach pays attention to those groups that are particularly in vulnerable situations and makes sure to include their voices in the discussions about solutions,” Anaya said.

Obligations and solutions

Under international human rights law, governments have the primary obligation to protect human rights, Anaya said.

Increasingly, climate justice advocates are seizing upon this legal obligation and taking governments to court for failure to protect human rights.

For instance, in 2013, the Urgenda Foundation filed a lawsuit against the Dutch government demanding that it take steps to address the toll climate change was taking on human rights. In a groundbreaking 2019 decision, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands ordered the government to cut the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions by 25% from 1990 levels.

Since then, hundreds of plaintiffs have filed suit against governments and businesses for failing to protect human rights from the impacts of climate change.

Meanwhile, a human rights approach has given a new voice to vulnerable communities, aiming to ensure that when solutions are discussed, their interests are top of mind.

“These solutions have to be equitable, and certain groups should not bear the cost more than others,” Anaya said.

For instance, if wind power is a solution, how will the construction of those wind farms affect the lives, livelihoods and traditions of people in local communities? When it comes to costly mitigation and adaptation strategies, who will pay?

“The human rights framing emphasizes equity and fairness. Those who are most responsible for climate change have the greatest responsibility to address it,” Anaya said.

Watt-Cloutier is quick to note that those who are most vulnerable to climate change—while often portrayed as victims and left unheard—tend to have unique and valuable perspectives on solutions.

“We are the most adaptable people in the world. We invented the kayak. We can build a home made of snow that is warm enough for a mother to birth in. We are teachers, not victims,” she said of the Inuit. “I believe Indigenous wisdom is the medicine the world seeks.”

As the world increasingly seeks an answer to what is now broadly viewed as an existential threat to human rights and the future of humanity, she said she has renewed hope.

“I believe the campaigns that link climate change to human rights protection efforts, that acknowledge our shared humanity and our shared future, are the most effective way to bring about lasting change.”

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