Climate Change is arguably the most important challenge facing the 21st century humanity that is unprecedented and will affect the planet as a whole, rather than individual areas or geographical locations. Despite all the counterpoints suggesting that climate change is only due to natural causes and has no human contributions, the current scientific consensus is that it is largely man made and the past and present human activities, regardless of origin or intention hasten the process and plunging the planet into irrevocable damages.
In addition to harming global ecosystems, ranging from arctic and antarctic ranges to tropical forests and i.e, all geographical spheres that harbor life, climate change can be argued to be caused by humanity and will inevitably become a great challenge for humanity that can jeopardize the most basic tenets of human life such as right to decent life, right to housing, right to food and water and right to self determination, alongside many others.
The effects of climate change upon humanity are multifaceted and can be argued to be threat multipliers as in they deepen existing vulnerabilities and lead to negative outcomes by interacting with conflict and poverty.
The potential threats faced by climate change include but are not limited to Extreme weather events that displace on average 70.000 people from their owns daily, slow onset environmental changes such as sea level rise which threaten whole cities and in some cases, whole nations, the potential for conflict due to climate related disasters and scarcity of resources and a combination of multiple different crisis that can force many displaced persons to be on the move once more.
Despite the increasing awareness surrounding the gravity of the challenge that awaits us, the main institutions established to face these challenges face their own shortcomings.
Accordingly, the UNHCR estimates there are 86 million refugees who suffer extensively from climate related conditions and future estimates argue that by 2100, around 1.2 billion people will be under great risk to be displaced from their homes due to climate related events.
Despite the best efforts of organizations such as UNHCR, the existence of a legal gap in thee form of 1951 UN Refugee convention lacking a definition for displacement due to climate related reasons results in the preventable suffering of millions of people who are at risk at the hands of narrow legal definitions.
Whats more, the resistance from both the Developed and underdeveloped countries. The former claim the measures that have to be taken are detrimental to their own sustained economic development while the latter claim the developed nations curbed the development of developing countries by preventing them to traverse the same path the developed countries undertook.
The most stark issue however, is the inverse relationship between which countries are most responsible for climate change and which ones are most susceptible to its dangers. Unfortunately, the countries that can be argued to have contributed most to climate change are the ones who will be least affected by its negative effects while the smallest contributors will be the ones who will suffer most.
Thus, there are two questions that are needed to be answered:
What must be done for the exercise of human rights in an age of climate change and what are the paths for development for both developed and underdeveloped nations that can be reconciled with threats due to climate crisis?
The existence of these questions however does not suggest they have satisfactory answers and attention must be given to protect the continuing exercise of human rights and sustainable development in an age of climate crisis.
As a corollary conclusion, a global cooperation between all the nations of the world are needed on a scale that is unprecedented in history and may be the only path that can prevent great suffering in the years to come.
However, there is never a place for defeatism as increased awareness and promises to tackle the adverse effects of climate change by almost all nations of the world suggest that not everything is hopeless and if humanity stands united, we have a great chance to overcome this crisis.
written by Tunahan Ali Usta, Middle East Technical University
see also the presentation and discussion