Why climate change is a threat to human rights

This research, commissioned by the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice, examines the challenges of achieving a rapid phase out of global carbon emissions equitably. It specifically considers potential human rights implications of such a phase out and proposes steps that could be taken to minimize these harms.

The Weather Channel produced a series of interviews with 25 of the “smartest voices on climate change” over the course of 2014. Two talks especially stand out, as they represent the voices of those people and communities who are already affected by the impacts on climate change.


Constance Okollet is a farmer, community leader and the chairperson of the Osukuru United Women’s Network in Eastern Uganda, a network of regional women’s groups that represent over 1,200 women. She speaks about how changed weather patterns have had a huge impact on her communities’ livelihoods.

Ursula Rakova is a community leader and the Executive Director of Tulele Peisa ‐ an organization that works to facilitate the relocation and resettlement of the Tulun/Carterets Atoll community to Bougainville, a larger island that is part of Papua New Guinea, as their home islands have been so heavily affected by climate change that living there will be impossible in the very near future.

If you are still looking for inspiration on why the world must act on climate change, you should watch this video. Kathy Jetnil‐Kijiner is an activist and poet from the Marshall Islands. She was selected to represent civil society at the UN Climate Summit in September 2014, where she presented a powerful message to world leaders, reminding them how people’s lives and future are affected by climate change and that urgent climate action is needed now.

Written by 17 world‐leading scientists of the Earth League and signed by prominent supporters, the Earth Statement was launched on Earth Day, 22 April 2015.
It is a call on world leaders to adopt an ambitious, equitable and science‐based climate agreement in Paris in December this year that can help keep warming below the two‐degree limit agreed on by countries and avoid dangerous climate change.

This book is a comprehensive collection of essays that catalogues 20 years of moral reflection on climate justice from one of the most eminent minds in the field. In his essays, Henry Shue explores ethical and political questions of justice between nations and across generations that we face in confronting the challenge of climate change.

This paper explores the links between climate change and justice. It establishes why climate change is an issue of justice, analyses the potential role of justice in the agreement currently being negotiated for 2015, and explores climate justice narratives. Recommended for anyone interested in the justice aspects of climate policy.