A World on Fire: climate change, global warming, and its impact on human rights in the Global South

Executive Summary

Climate change and global warming have become increasingly difficult to ignore in the past decade. The effects of climate change are prevalent in all aspects of public life – including economic and industrial growth, aeroplane emissions, preventative infrastructure, changing weather patterns, rising sea levels, public transportation, self-imposed dietary preferences, and policy development. This brief will detail the adverse impacts of climate change in the Global South regarding human rights and propose recommendations for policymakers to protect global human rights through climate change mitigation and climate justice.

Introduction

Since the beginning of the 21st century, climate change has shifted from being thought of as an alarmist conspiracy theory to an impending global crisis. Climate change mitigation policies have been increasingly developed and implemented in the past two decades, especially by European nations and other countries of the Global North. One of the most paramount examples is the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, which aims to keep the mean global temperature at 2 ℃ below pre-industrial levels and calls for net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Over 190 parties, including the EU, have ratified the agreement (UNFCCC, 2016, p. 30-34). As recently as December 2023, negotiators from over 200 parties agreed to reduce carbon emissions at the COP28 Conference in Dubai and called for “the ‘beginning of the end’ of the fossil fuel era by laying the ground for a swift, just, and equitable transition” (United Nations Climate Change News, 2023). These goals and agreements have been lauded as the first concrete steps toward combating climate change internationally.

However, these developments are largely symbolic and have yet to produce meaningful climate mitigation, especially in climate-vulnerable nations in Latin America, the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia. The effects of climate change disproportionately impact these communities for a plethora of reasons, including economic instability, ethnic or political conflict, inadequate healthcare, insufficient infrastructure, and the deforestation or desertification of arable lands. Nevertheless, the needs of these countries have historically been ignored by the Global North – including the EU. Therefore, European nations and all EU policymakers must take swift action to reduce the effects of climate change in the Global South. Climate change mitigation legislation will not only protect the global environment; it will also promote peace, security, and human rights abroad and in Europe.

This brief is directed towards all EU politicians and policymakers, especially those who have promised to tackle climate change or promoted environmental activism. The first part of this brief will detail the history and background of climate change, particularly highlighting previous actions (or lack thereof) from the EU to tackle it. The second part of this paper will provide European politicians with recommendations and policy options for promoting climate change mitigation legislation, including reducing greenhouse gas emissions, supporting climate-vulnerable nations, and implementing indigenous and ecofeminist conservation practices.

Problem Description and Background

Countries in the Global South face disproportionately higher levels of climate change vulnerability. For the past decade, environmental scientists have agreed that the leading cause of climate change is the overconsumption of the Earth’s resources by the governments and corporations of the Global North – which includes North America, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and all of Europe. In its quest for economic expansion, the Global North “has generated harmful economic and environmental consequences, trapping Southern nations in vicious cycles of poverty and environmental degradation, and producing global environmental problems” (Gonzalez, 2015).  For example, some European countries continue to emit more greenhouse gases than the entirety of the Global South, despite promises from the former to reduce carbon emissions (Brock, 2012). The direct environmental impacts of climate change – such as heat waves, rising sea levels, food insecurity, malnutrition, waterborne and foodborne diseases, and air pollution – occur at higher rates and have graver consequences on countries in the Global South. However, these countries often “lack the means to establish expensive infrastructures — flood dams, for example — in response to [environmental] threats” (Gross, 2002). The increasing social, political, and environmental impacts of global warming, coupled with chronic and systemic economic fragility, can complicate and prevent efforts from the Global South to mitigate climate change.

Climate change also devastates economically disenfranchised, conflict-affected, and democratically challenged states. Consequently, climate change has been labelled as a conflict multiplier, as many of its direct impacts are currently antecedents to international violent conflict (Shelby and Hoffman, 2014). For example, rising sea levels have led to forced displacement; changing weather patterns produce unpredictable economies, especially for nations reliant on agriculture and natural resources; and increasing natural disasters – such as hurricanes and droughts – create a scarcity of water, food, and shelter for local communities. These volatile living conditions and subsequent shortage of key environmental resources “contribute to violent conflict […] by generating social stresses that lead to urban unrest, clashes among ethnic and cultural groups, and insurgency campaigns” (Levy and Patz, 2015). Additionally, the influx of so-called “climate refugees” – i.e. immigrants fleeing unlivable or dangerous environmental conditions – has stoked the fires of potential conflict. Climate refugees and residents compete over local resources, and ethnic tensions may arise if “migrants and residents belong to different ethnocultural groups and the arrival of newcomers upsets an unstable ethnopolitical balance” (Koubi, 2019).

Climate change negatively impacts the human rights and overall well-being of minority groups, especially in the Global South. According to a report by the Office of the United Nations Human Rights Commissioner, the overall impact of climate change disproportionately affects women, children, and Indigenous communities (UN Human Rights Council, 2009). This is because climate change vulnerability is exacerbated by an inability or incapacity to adapt, meaning that politically unstable or economically disenfranchised communities are further threatened (Limon, 2009). For example, studies indicate that 98% of the world’s hungry and undernourished people reside in the Global South (FAO, IFAD, and WFP, 2015). The economies of these regions are largely agrarian and produce a majority of the world’s food. Further, the women and children from these regions are tasked with processing and harvesting these crops, yet they are most likely to suffer from food insecurity, malnutrition, and starvation as a result of climate change. Additionally, the impact of climate change disproportionately damages the livelihood of women of colour living in rural communities, especially in Africa (Glazebrook, Noll, and Opoku, 2020). 

Policy Options and Recommendations

Drastic cuts to CO₂ emissions in the next five years

For climate change mitigation policies to be both meaningful and effective, greenhouse gas emissions – especially carbon dioxide emissions – need to be drastically cut in the next five to ten years. Scientific experts argue that “even if GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions stabilised today, temperatures and sea levels would continue to rise for another century or more because of the time lag in the ocean’s response to atmospheric temperature change.” (Aminzadeh, 2007). Therefore, the severity, magnitude, and duration of climate change will depend largely on the amount of global greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade. Through the aforementioned 2015 Paris Agreement, 195 signatory countries agreed to stabilise the global temperature to below 2℃, primarily through the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions and the burning of fossil fuels (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 2016). However, environmental activists and scholars have criticised the agreement as too lenient and insufficient in tackling the long-term effects of climate change. They argue that the reduction of carbon emissions and the stabilisation of the global temperature need to be much more strict and urgent if it is to be successful.

If the European Union is to actively contribute to climate change mitigation, drastic measures must be taken immediately. In the next decade, European countries should switch to more renewable energy sources, including wind, solar, geothermal, and hydropower (Owusu and Asumadu-Sarkodie, 2016). Europe has relied heavily on oil and gas as energy sources for decades and the gas/oil trade is an integral part of EU imports and exports. Therefore, EU nations are hesitant to embrace climate-friendly energy policies. Nevertheless, many countries already utilise sustainable energy resources with great success rates, including several island nations in Oceania and the Caribbean (Mohanty, 2012). Decreasing the levels of carbon emissions will greatly reduce some of the immediate effects of climate change, including global warming, rising sea levels, and unstable weather patterns. In turn, this reduction will help countries in the Global South by protecting their environment and homeland, stabilising their economies, and preventing mass climate-related migration (Raghuvanshi, et al., 2008).

Economic and humanitarian support to climate-vulnerable nations

Although economic and humanitarian aid has historically been enacted as a post-disaster response, the effects of climate change can be lessened through anticipatory humanitarian action (Marin and Naess, 2017). Therefore, the European Union and its policymakers should develop and invest in early-acting humanitarian programs to combat climate change impacts, including early warning systems, evacuation plans, and resilience strategies. These aid programs would strengthen preparedness for climate-related disasters and also “avert, minimise, and address displacement related to the adverse impacts of climate change” (Thalheimer, Simperingham, and Jjemba, 2022). Most of the international community, especially the Global North, has sufficient funds dedicated to providing humanitarian aid; for example, the global expenditure for general aid in 2015 was $135 billion – including military, diplomatic, and economic aid. However, the international budget reserved specifically for humanitarian aid is only $22 billion (Miliband and Gurumurthy, 2015). Essentially, countries of the Global North – including the European Union – have the funds and capacity to provide anticipatory humanitarian aid to the Global South that could prevent and reverse the harmful effects of climate change, but choose not to.

Embracing ecofeminist and Indigenous conservation policies

The dual oppression of both the environment and women – especially Indigenous women, poor women, and women of colour – has been greatly analysed by an emerging subcategory of environmental activism, known as ecofeminism. Ecofeminists argue that “the liberation of women cannot be achieved without the simultaneous liberation of nature from the clutches of exploitation” (Kings, 2017). This branch of feminism therefore highlights the intersectional relationship between climate change and the global oppression of women, calling for the eradication of both. Ecofeminism tackles climate change by “addressing the environmental issue from the categories of patriarchy, androcentrism, care, sexism, and gender” (Puleo, 2017). Therefore, ecofeminist change in the political sphere would be reflected by an increased representation of marginalised groups – including women of colour – in legislative bodies and the inclusion of feminist perspectives in climate change mitigation projects. Economically, an ecofeminist transition “from excessive takings (i.e. ‘profits’) from women, Indigenous communities, the Two-Thirds World, animals, and ecosystems to a green economy requires sustainable jobs […] includ[ing] sustainable energy systems, sustainable transit systems, and urban planning guided by environmental justice” (Gaard, 2015).

Finally, Indigenous conservation practices should be encouraged and implemented globally, especially in countries with high rates of greenhouse gas emissions. Indigenous communities are based on sustainability, spirituality, resourcefulness, and economic and political autonomy; they view the environment not as an item to be dominated or exploited, but as a being deserving of respect. However, colonial practices and legacies have attempted to silence Indigenous perspectives on the environment (Salick and Ross, 2018). Nevertheless, dozens of Indigenous groups across the world still maintain traditional ecological practices, including the Inuit, Cree, and Anishinaabe people of Canada; the Māori people of New Zealand; the Makushi people of Guyana; the Igorot people of the Philippines; and the Bemba and Tonga people of Zambia, to name a few (Berkes, 2009, Doolittle, 2010; Makondo and Thomas, 2018). Their sustainable projects include traditional agriculture and forestry, reusing and recycling excess resources such as overgrown roots as firewood or ash from burnt crops as fertiliser, changing diets and eating habits depending on the seasons and annual crop yield, and utilising natural, herbal-based medicines (Makondo and Thomas, 2018). Therefore, Indigenous people across the globe have successfully championed sustainable, low-carbon lifestyles for centuries. Although the Global North has sidelined Indigenous communities across the world, Indigenous perspectives and voices must be included in the climate change mitigation process.

Conclusion

The climate crisis shows no signs of slowing down, especially with the influx of soaring temperatures, rising sea levels, ecological disasters, and climate change-related migration. If European countries are to promote meaningful climate mitigation, they must take immediate action. The European Union and its member states must cut their yearly greenhouse gas emissions, and try to encourage countries outside of the EU to do the same, including the United States, Japan, Russia, China, and India. Nevertheless, reducing carbon emissions will not be enough to halt the long-term impacts of climate change and global warming. European countries must also support the countries of the Global South, which are already facing the adverse effects of climate change, through humanitarian and economic aid. Finally, the European Union must adopt Indigenous and ecofeminist conservation practices, which call for the inclusion of marginalised voices in the climate change mitigation process. These perspectives also promote sustainability by calling for the end of overconsumption. Through these policy suggestions, the European Union and its member states can protect the Global South, halt the negative impacts of climate change, and create active environmental change for future generations.

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