There is no human right to a safe or stable climate

From Climate Etc.

by Judith Curry

“Europe’s highest human rights court ruled Tuesday that countries must better protect their people from the consequences of climate change , siding with a group of older Swiss women against their government in a landmark ruling that could have implications across the continent.” [link]

“The court — which is unrelated to the European Union — ruled that Switzerland “had failed to comply with its duties” to combat climate change and meet emissions targets.

That, the court said, was a violation of the women’s rights, noting that the European Convention on Human Rights guarantees people “effective protection by the state authorities from the serious adverse effects of climate change on their lives, health, well-being and quality of life.”

A group called Senior Women for Climate Protection, whose average age is 74, had argued that they were particularly affected because older women are most vulnerable to the extreme heat that is becoming more frequent.

“The court recognized our fundamental right to a healthy climate and to have our country do what it failed to do until now: that is to say taking ambitious measures to protect our health and protect the future of all,” said Anne Mahrer, a member of the group.”

Well fortunately I have some text prepared to help innoculate us from this fresh new climate hell of litigation.

There is no human right to a safe or stable climate

There is widespread international acceptance of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which enumerates 30 human rights. There is no mention of the word “climate” or the word “environment” in the UDHR. This is true also for the European Convention on Human Rights.

There are efforts in Europe to create a new human right to a safe, stable climate. From a decision by the UN Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) [1]

“…  environmental degradation, climate change and unsustainable development constitute some of the most pressing and serious threats to the ability of present and future generations to enjoy the right to life.”

From a 2019 Report written by the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights:[2] 

“There is now global agreement that human rights norms apply to the full spectrum of environmental issues, including climate change.”

Deductions based on a decision by the UNHRC and a Report by the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, do not create a new “human right” to be protected against the dangerous impacts of climate change. No attempt has been made by the UN to create international support for a new human right to be protected from climate change.  Such a right is neither implicit or explicit in the UNFCCC Paris Agreement.

Even if Net Zero objectives were achieved globally by 2050, the climate would continue to change from natural weather and climate variability: volcanic eruptions, solar effects, large-scale oscillations of ocean circulations, and other geologic processes.  Further, given the inertia in the climate system (particularly oceans and ice sheets), it would be many decades before there was any noticeable change in extreme weather/climate events and sea level rise after Net Zero was achieved.

Exaggeration of the risks from human-caused climate change lead to serious contradictions in context of the idea “that human rights offer protection against the impacts of dangerous climate change.”

Specifically with regards to the right to life, global mortality (per 100,000 people) from extreme weather and climate events have declined by 99% since 1920.[5]  Between the period 1980 and 2016, global mortality (per 100,000 people) from extreme weather and climate events has dropped by 6.5 times.[6]  For the mortality statistics since 1980, there is a clear negative relation between vulnerability and wealth.[7]  Thus, an increase in wealth provides much greater and much more certain protection against climate-related risks than emissions reduction.

The trend in mortality statistics does not mean that weather and climate disasters have become less frequent or less intense.  The trend implies that the world is now much better at preventing deaths from extreme weather and climate events than in the past. This has been accomplished through increasing wealth (driven by energy derived from fossil fuels), which provides better infrastructure, greater reserves, advance warnings, and greater recovery capacity.

The declining mortality statistics raise several issues and contradictions regarding the allegations that “human rights offer protection against the impacts of dangerous climate change”.  What of the “rights” of people that died in the early part of the 20th century (or earlier) from extreme weather and climate events that were caused only by natural weather and climate variability? How were these deaths to be prevented at the time?  Do deaths only count if they are alleged to be caused by human caused warming, but not by, for example, restricting access to safe cooking fuels?[8] Do deaths only count if they are alleged to be caused by human caused warming, but not by natural weather and climate variability?  How is the cost of preventing deaths associated with extreme weather and climate events (whether natural or human caused) to be balanced with the costs of attempting to prevent the extremely larger number of deaths from a myriad of other causes?

The arguments supporting the putative right to a safe climate are significantly weakened once the adverse effects of the policies to bring about a safe climate on food production are understood. In addition, climate and energy policies have significant environmental impacts and cause environmental degradation. For instance, forest biomass-based fuel causes deforestation, and on-shore and off-shore wind turbines and solar parks may (and, in fact, do) harm the social fabric, real estate prices, nature, biodiversity, the scenery, and human health. The mining and manufacturing required for batteries, and other renewable energy-related goods and infrastructure cause adverse environmental and human health impacts, and renewable energy also causes CO₂ emissions. Given that European Human Rights Court has taken the position that the right to life also protects against environmental degradation and health risks, these adverse environmental and health impacts associated with any policies to respond to the Court’s judgment would have to be taken into account.

Summary.  There will be a continuing need for fossil fuels.  Rapid restrictions to fossil fuels before cleaner energy is available interferes with more highly ranked sustainability goals – no poverty, no hunger, affordable and clean energy, and industry-innovation-infrastructure. There is no human right to a safe or stable climate. Apart from the lack of an international agreement, such a “right” contains too many contradictions to be meaningful.

[1] “CCPR/C/127/D/2728/2016 ,” United Nations Official Documents, September 23, 2020, https://www.un.org/en/delegate/page/un-official-documents.

[2] “Safe Climate: A Report of the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment,” UNEP, October 1, 2019, https://www.unep.org/resources/report/safe-climate-report-special-rapporteur-human-rights-and-environment.

[[5] Bjorn Lomborg, “Welfare in the 21st Century: Increasing Development, Reducing Inequality, the Impact of Climate Change, and the Cost of Climate Policies,” Technological Forecasting and Social Change 156 (July 2020): 119981, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2020.119981.

[6] Giuseppe Formetta and Luc Feyen, “Empirical Evidence of Declining Global Vulnerability to Climate-Related Hazards,” Global Environmental Change 57 (July 2019): 101920, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2019.05.004.

[7] Bjørn Lomborg, False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2020), 218.

[8] Charles N. Mock et al., eds., “Household Air Pollution from Solid Cookfuels and Its Effects on Health,” Disease Control Priorities, Third Edition: Injury Prevention and Environmental Health 7 (2017): 133–52, https://doi.org/10.1596/978-1-4648-0522-6_ch7.

[9] United Nations, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, The Right to Adequate Food, Fact Sheet No. 34, Geneva, April 2010, https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Publications/FactSheet34en.pdf

[10] United Nations, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, The Right to Adequate Food, Fact Sheet No. 34, Geneva, April 2010, p. 5 https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Publications/FactSheet34en.pdf