Is climate change a human rights issue? 20 July 2011 By Dr
Stephen Humphreys, Lecturer in Law, London School of Economics
Climate change could exacerbate existing problems in the Middle
East, and may in turn hold serious implications for regional
security. This much is clear: climate change will impact human
rights. Rights to food, water, housing, health, ‘peaceful
enjoyment of property’—all these will be affected, often on a
vast scale. Thousands, or more likely millions, of people will
lose their homes, their livelihoods, even their cultures.
Islands will disappear leaving their inhabitants potentially
stateless. Coastal cities will sink. Changing weather patterns
will eliminate traditional lifestyles, such as those of the Sami
reindeer herders in Norway. Droughts, floods and tornadoes will
expose thousands to catastrophe. Mass upheaval and migration.
War. These, at least, are the predictions of the world’s leading
authority: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
in its last report of 2007. A