By: Joey Sta. Isabel, 350 Asia Senior Organizing Specialist
Climate impacts affect peoples’ right to housing, as evidenced by the destruction wrought by Typhoon Ulysses last 2020 in a housing project in the province of Rizal, Philippines. Photo: Ilang-Ilang Quijano
Reports about climate change-related extreme weather events often focus solely on the number of deaths, missing persons, and injuries. However, survivors of these disasters are frequently left to endure the less visible but equally devastating long-term impacts on their lives. When these invisible impacts go unreported, they remain unaddressed, allowing those responsible to evade accountability and obligations to protect human rights.
How, then, are climate impacts connected to human rights beyond the right to life?
Human rights can be broadly categorized into two groups: the first, more widely recognized and historically established, is civil and political rights, while the second encompasses economic, social, and cultural rights.
While civil and political rights safeguard people’s freedoms and their ability to participate in society, economic, social, and cultural rights (ESCR) establish the foundation for living a life with dignity. Examples of ESCR include the rights to education, adequate housing, highest attainable standard of health, water and sanitation, and work – some primary indicators of a good quality of life.
During and after disasters, people’s ESCR are adversely affected. Heatwaves and typhoons often lead to the suspension of classes, and in some cases, schools are destroyed entirely. Floodwaters can spread diseases. Farmlands are devastated, impacting livelihoods,food production, and the right to food. Water supplies are frequently contaminated, posing additional health risks. Climate change-related catastrophes also pose a threat to social cohesion and cultural tradition as people are displaced and communities are dispersed.
By recognizing ESCR, governments accept their responsibility to respect, protect, and fulfill these rights, including ensuring the realization of these rights in the face of climate impacts. Failure of governments to deliver these rights constitute a violation of human rights.
Climate impacts on ESCR are evident across Asia. Here are some examples of how they are impacted in the different parts of the region:
Right to Adequate Housing: The National Human Rights Commission of India discussed how climate change-induced natural disasters emphasized how climate change-induced natural disasters displaced people from their homes and communities, effectively creating “climate refugees.”
Right to the Highest Attainable Standard of Health: An article in The Lancet talked about how climate change is now seen as a threat to public health in Japan, with increasing trends of health-related illness, cold-related deaths, water-borne and food-borne diseases, and vector-borne diseases, among others.
Right to Mental Health: A study published in the Malaysian Journal of Public Health Medicine discussed the high prevalence of climate anxiety among the youth in Malaysia, causing fear, helplessness, and pessimism about the future.
Right to Adequate Food: Dialogue Earth highlighted how climate change exacerbates the marginalization of Nepali communities already burdened by historical and systemic discrimination, intensifying food insecurity and its associated health challenges, such as malnutrition, infant mortality, and growth stunting.
Right to Education: The Philippines’ Department of Education reported that for this school year alone, children nationwide have lost 26 learning days due to typhoons and other natural calamities.
Right to Water and Sanitation: Even Global North countries are not immune to the impacts of climate change, as evidenced by research in the Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies, which highlights a significant decline in water supply reliability in South Korea.
Right to Work: The Global Disaster Preparedness Center underscored the vulnerability of workers in Indonesia to climate-related occupational safety and health hazards due to lack of information and adequate preparation.
What can we do for our human rights?
Collective Action. Find allies in different sectors to navigate the growing restrictions on civic spaces. This is an opportunity to recognize the connections between climate justice and other social issues. Draw strength from each other through acts of mutual aid and solidarity.
Collective action is crucial for achieving climate justice as part of our economic, social and cultural rights. Photo: Gilang Kharisma Anugerah
People Power. Empower communities to take the lead in shaping their own sustainable futures. A just energy transition is only possible when driven by those most impacted by government actions and inactions. Grassroots leadership is key to building equitable and lasting solutions.
Pressure Decision-Makers. Demand action from world leaders to achieve climate and energy justice. Our calls must include:
- Raising ambition and committing to robust Nationally Determined Contributions;
- Transition to clean, affordable, and accessible renewable energy systems led by communities;
- Supporting climate adaptation measures, especially for the most vulnerable and hardest hit regions;
- Compensate communities experiencing the impacts of the climate crisis.
Climate justice and human rights for all!