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Article

18 Sep 2019

Author:
Sébastien Duyck, Center for International Environmental Law, on Social Europe

Time to act for climate justice

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Today, the international human rights community and the international environmental community unite in New York city ahead of the United Nations Climate Action Summit. It is the latest, critical step in broadening the climate-justice movement to include the voices of groups at the forefront of human rights struggles...Once perceived as solely an environmental concern, climate change is, at its core, a human-rights issue. Indeed, the root causes of the climate crisis are embedded in legacies of discrimination, exploitation and corporate abuses. Climate change is a system of interconnected, interlaced threats to human lives and human rights..The impacts of a warming planet are not the only climate-related threats to human rights, however. The drivers of climate change themselves—fossil-fuel extraction and burning—have devastating health impacts on frontline communities...This path requires accountability for government and corporate actors whose actions contribute to and compound climate change. Under international human-rights treaties, states have legal obligations to protect rights, and they must be held to account if they violate those duties. Likewise, corporations must be held responsible for their contributions to the climate crisis and capture of governmental policies.