In 2008, 20 million people – roughly equivalent to the entire population of Australia – were displaced by sudden-onset, climate-related natural hazards.
 
There are now more ‘climate refugees’ than political refugees.

There is no legal protection for these people.

“A successful outcome of ongoing climate change negotiations matters for human rights. A new climate change agreement must be fair, balanced and sufficiently ambitious to be effective. Climate change is related not only to environmental factors but also to poverty, discrimination and inequalities – this is why climate change is a human rights issue,” said Kang, adding that the human rights perspective is particularly well suited to analyzing how climate change affects people differently…climate change has many implications for the effective enjoyment of human rights, and for Nations human rights obligations and commitments”
Kyung-wha Kang, Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights

Send your message now

The international climate change negotiations have so far failed to address the humanitarian and human rights impacts of climate change.

The UNFCCC must adopted a rights-based approach urgently.

Send your message to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and Christiana Figueres, UNFCCC Executive Secretary, and urging closer cooperation between their institutions to ensure that the best possible solution to forced displacement resulting from climate change is delivered.

 

To: Ms. Navanethem Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
Ms. Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat

The environmental consequences of our changing climate present a new and significant challenge to the rights to adequate food, water, shelter and self-determination.

Large numbers of people have already been displaced by gradual deteriorations in environmental conditions or sudden-onset, climate-related events. These people have had no choice but to abandon their homes and land, yet despite being forced migrants they lack protection under any mandated international agency or legislation.

Whilst the clear link between human rights and climate change has been made in the Human Rights Council, and whilst the IPCC declared two decades ago that the “greatest effects of climate change may be those on human migration”, international climate change negotiations under the UNFCCC has so far failed to adequately address this issue.

I call you on both to build and sustain a formal collaborative effort between the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UNFCCC Secretariat in order to ensure that a rights-based approach is adopted during the development and implementation of a post-Kyoto agreement.

Thank you for your time.

Yours sincerely,

[Your name will go here]