The vast majority of signatory countries to the Paris Agreement pay little attention to their commitments to the protection of human rights in the context of adaptation to climate change, reveals a study conducted by Quebec researchers.
Only a third of the 147 countries studied make reference to respecting, promoting or considering human rights in their national climate change adaptation policies. And those who mention it often do so in general terms, without concrete measures to protect vulnerable populations.
“We have few concrete examples of countries where human rights have significant weight on adaptation policies. It wasn’t very surprising, but it was still discouraging,” admits Alexandra Lesnikowski, assistant professor in the Department of Geography, Urban Planning and Environment at Concordia University and co-author of the study published last October. in the magazine Climate Policy.
To arrive at this observation, Professor Lesnikowski and Sébastien Jodoin, professor at the Faculty of Law at McGill University, evaluated national adaptation plans based on the place given to the most vulnerable people.
Poverty, gender, ethnicity, belonging to an indigenous people and even physical disabilities are among the factors that make people more vulnerable to the harm caused by climate change.
“ [Ces groupes] Have they been consulted on how climate change affects their lives? Do they have influence on decisions, how money will be spent and the types of actions prioritized? » lists Mme Lesnikowski on the paths that guided his analysis.
In most cases, the answer is no.
However, respect for human rights, both in the reduction of greenhouse gases (GHG) and in measures to attenuate and adapt to changes, is at the heart of the Paris Agreement, signed in 2015 by 193 countries.
But as for the reduction of GHGs, there are no “really effective accountability mechanisms within the agreement to sanction countries that fail to respect their commitments,” deplores Alexandra Lesnikowski.
In addition to this distressing observation, the study contains some intriguing avenues. Contrary to what one might expect, human rights are not the prerogative of rich Western countries.
Rather, it is the countries of Latin America, the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa that are the most numerous to include mentions of human rights in their national policies. Most rich countries do not do this, with the exception of Canada and Norway.
“Countries that perform less well on the scales of social equality and human rights tend to detail these rights in more detail in their adaptation plans,” reveals M.me Lesnikowski. This may demonstrate a real effort by these countries to improve their human rights records. But it could also stem from the fact that they are linked by bilateral commitments with wealthy donor countries that make respect for human rights a condition of their aid. »
Canada, good student in a mediocre group
Canada is part of a select group of 12 countries, out of 147, that mentions human rights in detail in its National Climate Change Adaptation Strategy, updated last summer.
“This does not mean that Canada has adopted an adaptation approach based on human rights, but that the discussion is more advanced here on the importance of considering these rights in our adaptation policies,” specifies M.me Lesnikowski.
“Canada ranks among the countries that are doing a little better than the others,” she continues. But the bar is pretty low in this study. No country has reached a place where the scientific community would like it regarding the place given to human rights. »
However, Canada is far from being immune to the dramatic consequences that extreme climatic events can have on vulnerable populations. We can take as an example the dome of overwhelming heat that hit British Columbia in 2021, killing more than 600 people in one week.
“If we look at who has been most affected from a health point of view, it is people with low incomes, in poorly insulated housing and without access to air conditioning. Coroners’ reports show very clearly that certain marginalized populations suffering from health problems have been disproportionately affected,” says the woman who directs Concordia’s Climate Change Adaptation Research Laboratory.
“These kinds of events provide striking examples of how certain populations fare much less well than others” in the face of climate change, says Ms.me Lesnikowski.
This content is produced in collaboration with Concordia University.