Climate Change and Human Rights: The 2015 Paris Conference and the Task of Protecting People on a Warming Planet

Successive climate conferences have attempted to align states against an unprecedented global threat whose dramatic contours are becoming clearer by the day. However our economic, political, and social systems, down to our everyday routines, are currently powered in ways that are incompatible with climatic stability. Indeed climate instability remains a threat to present as well as future generations. The task, therefore, after almost thirty years of failed climate diplomacy is to set the stage for coping with these challenges before it is too late.

What will be the values driving the navigation of such complexity? In particular, can framing climate change as a “human rights issue” be expected to strengthen the political resonance of the problem and spur immediate and significant action? Can it open fertile legal avenues for its management? And is it the correct way of framing the problem?

These are the questions addressed by contributors to Global Policy’s e-book entitled “Climate Change and Human Rights: The 2015 Paris Conference and the Task of Protecting People on a Warming Planet,”' guest edited by Marcello Di Paola and Daanika Kamal.

Contents

INTRODUCTION

Marcello Di Paola and Daanika Kamal- Climate Change and Human Rights: The 2015 Paris Conference and the Task of Protecting People on a Warming Planet

1.Stephen Humphreys- Anthropocentric Rights
2.Des Gasper- Precautionary? Principled?
3.Sam Adelman- Climate Justice and the Rights of Small Island States
4.John Knox- Three Benefits of a Human Rights Perspective on Climate Change
5.Joyeeta Gupta- Litigation, Human Rights and Climate Change
6.Samir Saran and Vidisha Mishra- Securing the Right to Life
7.Clement Loo- A More Central Role for Lower and Middle Income Countries in Climate Governance
8.Paul G. Harris- Climate Change and Human Rights in East Asia
9.Cristian Timmermann and Georges F. Félix- Adapting Food Production to Climate Change: An Inclusive Approach
10.Serena Parekh- Climate Change and Refugees
11.David Ritter- The Imperative for Climate Change Migration with Dignity (CCMD)
12.Gianfranco Pellegrino- Climate Refugees and their Right to Occupancy
13.Andreas Pantazatos- Cultural Heritage Rights and Climate Change
14.Iñigo González-Ricoy- Environmental Rights by Constitutional Means
15.Henry Shue- Last Opportunities: Future Human Rights Generate Urgent Present Duties

CONCLUSION

Marcello Di Paola and Daanika Kamal- Climate Change as Human Rights Protection