The right to a stable climate - the ultimate human right

Dr. Ruwantissa ABEYRATNE

CHANGES IN PLANET: Climate change is no longer a theory and has fast become an unequivocal reality and a defining issue of our time. Its enormity can be identified numerically. For instance 2005 was the warmest year on record. There has been a 33 percent rise in global carbon dioxide emissions since 1987.

The Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) records that 5 million extra people are at risk of hunger by the year 2020 if climate change continues unabated. The 2003 heat wave killed 35,000 people in Europe.

Environmental campaigner Sheila Watt-Cloutier, in her article “A Human Issue” in the May 2007 issue of “Our Planet”- the magazine of the United Nations Environment Programme, says that there are palpable signs of drastic climate change in the Arctic, which she calls the health barometer for the planet.

Whatever happens in the world occurs first in the Arctic - the home of Inuit. in 2004 certain conclusions were reached by the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) as a result of work carried out by 300 scientists from 15 countries.

Among the results, according to Watt-Cloutier, is that for Inuit, warming is likely to disrupt or even destroy their hunting and food-sharing culture as reduced sea ice causes populations to decline or become extinct.

The Inuit have lived in the arctic for thousands of years and their culture and economy reflect their homeland. Climate change in the arctic would therefore infringe the basic human right of the Inuit to life.

In the same issue of Our Planet, Basanta Shresta, in his article “Mountain Tsunamis” states that glaziers are retreating in the face of accelerating global warming, as human activities cause steadily increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and their melting is an important indicator of climate change.

This is confirmed by the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC, released in the first half of 2007, which records that most of the observed increase in global averaged temperatures since the mid 20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.

According to the Report, rising temperatures in the Arctic have caused a decline of 2.7 per cent of sea ice since 1978. A third of the glazier surface in Bolivia and Peru has disappeared since the seventies. The Report concludes that climate change is one of the most critical global challenges of our time.

The former Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, in his Report to the Fifty Ninth Session of the UN General Assembly in March 2005, observed that one of the greatest environmental and developmental challenges in the twenty first century will be to control and cope with climate change.

The Secretary General drew the attention of the General Assembly to the fact that entry into force in February 2005 of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was an important step toward dealing with global warming.

Since the Protocol extends only until 2012, the Secretary General called upon the international community to agree on stabilization targets for greenhouse gas concentrations beyond that date.

To achieve this goal, scientific advancement and technological innovation must be mobilized for carbon management and energy efficiency, the responsibility for which lies with the countries that contribute to most of the problems.

The Third Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (Climate Change Convention) was held from to 11, December 1997 at Kyoto, Japan. Significantly the States parties to the Convention adopted a protocol (Kyoto Protocol) on 11 December 1997 under which industrialized countries have agreed to reduce their collective emissions of six greenhouse gases by at least 5 per cent by 2008-2012.

Ambassador Raul Estrada-Oyuela, who had chaired the Committee of the Whole established by the Conference to facilitate the negotiation of a Protocol text, expressed the view that the agreement will have a real impact on the problem of greenhouse gas emissions and that 11 December 1997 should be remembered as the Day of the Atmosphere.”

The Kyoto Protocol, in Article 1(a)(v) calls each State Party to achieve progressive or phasing out of market imperfections, fiscal incentives, tax and duty exemptions and subsidies in all greenhouse gas emitting sectors that run counter to the objective of the Convention and application of market instruments.

The subject of emissions leading to trading is addressed initially in Article 3 of the Protocol which requires States Parties to ensure that their aggregate anthropogenic carbon dioxide equivalent emissions of the greenhouse gases listed in Annex A do not exceed their assigned amounts, calculated pursuant to their quantified emission limitation and reduction commitments inscribed in Annex B.

The provision also requires States parties to the Protocol to reduce their overall emissions of greenhouse gases by at least 5 per cent below 1990 levels in the commitment period 2008 to 2012. Article 3 (6) goes further, in providing that States Parties shall be allowed a certain degree of flexibility in implementation of Article 3 and the reduction of their emission standards.

This approach has been endorsed by many learned and informed commentators, among whom is former US Vice President Al Gore, who in his movie “An Inconvenient Truth” highlighted the fact that the Earth’s atmosphere is thin enough that we can change its composition with the emissions we produce through industrial activity and transportation. Gore, who has dedicated his career both as a distinguished politician in the United States where he served under President Clinton as Vice President and also as an erudite academic with impressive credentials, makes the frightening but accurate claim that the vastly increasing levels of Carbon Dioxide we produce can thicken the atmosphere so that the rays of the Sun which fall on Earth and bounce back as infra red rays beyond the atmosphere cannot escape the thick atmospheric layer at the rate they did before and are trapped within, making the world warmer.

This phenomenon has resulted in Carbon Dioxide being termed a greenhouse gas as it causes a greenhouse effect by retaining heat within the atmosphere.

The environmental crisis that we face now is that the solar energy that we receive from the Sun, which under normal circumstances and for years has been retained in quantities that benefit the Earth in terms of the balance of its ecosystem and bio-diversity, and the rest released by way of infra red rays, is not being released as it should as more infra red rays are being trapped due to the Carbon Dioxide induced layer surrounding the atmosphere.

Popularly called “global warming” this phenomenon is the result of the observed increase in the average temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans in recent decades. It is claimed that the Earth’s average near-surface atmospheric temperature rose 0.6 ñ 0.2ø Celsius (1.1 ñ 0.4ø Fahrenheit in the 20th century.

The current scientific consensus is that most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been attributable to human activities.

As already stated, the main cause of the human-induced component of warming is the increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHGs), especially Carbon Dioxide (CO2), due to activities such as burning of fossil fuels, land clearing, and agriculture. Greenhouse gases are gases that contribute to the greenhouse effect.

This effect was first described by Joseph Fourier in 1824, and was first investigated quantitatively in 1896 by the Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius.

Another vocal commentator is George Monbiot, a radical thinker and visiting professor at Oxford Brookes University, who claims in his book “HEAT: How to Stop the Planet from Burning”, that if in the year 2030, carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere remain as high as they are today, the likely result is an increase of two degrees warming above pre-industrial levels, which is the point beyond which certain major ecosystems begin collapsing.

The collapse of one’s environment would eventually bring about catastrophic results and threaten human existence. When this prospect is viewed in the context of human rights, climate change, and our apathy toward it would infringe our basic right to life, as in the case of Inuit cited above.

The basic protection of human rights starts at the least desirable level of existence. Although this is a minimalist approach, it is arguably the best starting point and perhaps the only one we have.

A right is something due to a person by just claim, legal guarantee or moral principle. It is a power, privilege or immunity accrued to a person by law and is a legally enforceable claim that another will do or will not do a given act.

It is also a recognized and protected interest, the violation of which is wrong. Therefore, the starting point should be in the words “just claim” “legal guarantee and “moral principle”. These claims and guarantees based on moral principles should be justiciable.

The question now is, how could we enforce the human right to life and ensure that life is not jeopardised by continued climate change? The first step of course would be to recognize the enormity of climate change.

The second is to enforce measures. One of such measures would be the “greening” of human activity including industry. As an example, one can cite the admirable step taken by Virgin Atlantic Chairman, Sir Richard Branson who has formed a new company - Virgin Fuels - that would invest millions of dollars in alternate fuels.

He has pledged to reinvest profits from his airline and rail transport businesses to alternative energy, explaining that his initiative was prompted by the concern he had regarding the welfare of the world affected by global warming.

This move is but part of Branson’s actions to coerce the aviation industry to cut fuel consumption, for which he has set aside an investment of US $ 3 billion over the next ten years to fight global warming.

Branson’s initiative, which is both laudable and timely, follows a secular trend where, since the time of the introduction of jet aircraft, civil aviation authorities have made inroads into the realm of fuel consumption and made sustained efforts to address the issue of environmental impacts caused by aircraft operations.

This is primarily because of the inevitable corollary to the exclusive use of petroleum as industrial fuel. This in turn resulted in the depletion of global oil reserves, where, as far back as 1949 oil was recognized as a finite non renewable resource.

Both factors - pollution caused by engine emissions as well as the limits of global oil resources - prompted wide ranging studies on the optimal use of fuel in the aviation industry and alternative fuel sources.

Being already aware of this trend, Ryanair, known to be Europe’s greenest airline, is investing some E 17 billion on its fleet replacement and expansion programme which began in 1999.

All of Ryanair’s older Boeing 737-200 aircraft have already been replaced with next generation 737-800 aircraft, which has made Ryanair the airline with the youngest and most modern fleet in all of Europe.

These measures put Ryanair in the forefront as an airline which minimises and continues to reduce fuel burn and carbon dioxide emissions per passenger kilometre.

The low cost business model used by Rayanair (and other low cost carriers) which involves the use of secondary airports with no holding patterns as in busier airports and point to point services (which eliminate multiple landings) help increase fuel efficiency and restrict emissions. It is reported that Ryanair’s fleet replacement has resulted in an overall reduction in fuel consumption of 52% between 1998 and 2006.

On the other side of the Atlantic, American Airlines, with one of the largest fleets in the world, is also involved in a comprehensive aircraft weight-reduction program. The airline has removed ovens and galleys from aircraft on which hot food is not served. It also carries less potable water on flights.

Although earlier it was routine for maintenance personnel to simply fill the water tanks prior to flight, a study conducted by the airline revealed that usually less than half the water was being consumed.

Following this realization, , the maintenance department designed a $1 valve that shuts off the filler hose when the tank reaches 75 percent capacity rather than change the water-tank filling procedure, which resulted in a reduction of aircraft weight by about 100 pounds and a saving of approximately $2.8 million in fuel annually.

Carbon offsetting is one way of mitigating the effects of climate change. This act of mitigating (“offsetting”) greenhouse gas emissions is well exemplified by the simple exercise of planting of trees to compensate for the greenhouse gas emissions from personal air travel.

A wide variety of offset methods are in use - while tree planting has initially been a mainstay of carbon offsetting, renewable energy and energy conservation offsets are now becoming increasingly popular.

Carbon offsetting as part of a “carbon neutral” lifestyle has gained some appeal and momentum mainly among consumers in western countries who have become aware and concerned about the potentially negative effects of energy-demanding lifestyles and economies on the environment.

The Kyoto Protocol has sanctioned official offsets for governments and private companies to earn carbon credits which can be traded on a marketplace. This has contributed to the increasing popularity of voluntary offsets among private individuals and also companies. Offsets may be cheaper or more convenient alternatives to reducing one’s own fossil-fuel consumption.

However, some critics object to carbon offsets, and many have questioned the benefits of certain types of offsets (such as tree planting), and other projects.

If climate change can ultimately decide whether a human has the right to live, and it indeed can, the whole issue must be approached on the basis of social and moral principles applicable to human rights. There must be global enforcement of measures such as carbon offsets and emissions trading.

Alternative fuels should be considered a necessary alternative to fossil fuels. These measures must be taken through a global forum which is inevitably the United Nations. The United Nations is all about “nations”.

Nations are people, as against countries which are defined geographic areas, and States which are a collection of agencies that form a government. Therefore human rights should incontrovertibly be about nations and their interactions and people helping one another.

Rights are generated through human experience, particularly with injustice. Therefore, although such rights are technically entrenched in a Bill of Rights or Constitution, they should not be limited to the law that is written down but be extended whenever required to include new rights if an injustice or wrong is about to be committed.

(The writer is Co-ordinator, Air Transport Programmes, International Civil Aviation Organisation, Canada. www.Abeyratne.com)