Climate Change Emerges as a Growing Human Rights Crisis

Poverty caused by factors including climate change can make children more vulnerable to Violence.

With the impacts of climate change intensifying across the globe, the world has begun to recognise that climate change is not only an ecological crisis but also a human rights emergency.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk echoed this message in Geneva earlier this year, posing a question to the Human Rights Council:

“Are we taking the steps needed to protect people from climate chaos, safeguard their futures, and manage natural resources in ways that respect human rights and the environment?”

His answer was simple: the world is not doing nearly enough.

In this context, climate change must be understood not only as an environmental emergency but also as a violation of human rights, Professor Joyeeta Gupta told UN News recently.

She is co-chair of the international scientific advisory body Earth Commission and one of the United Nations’ high-level representatives for science, technology, and innovation for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Who suffers the most?

Professor Gupta said the 1992 climate convention never quantified human harm.

She noted that when the Paris Agreement was adopted in 2015, global consensus settled on limiting warming to 2 degrees Celsius, later recognising 1.5 degrees Celsius as a safer goal.

However, for small island states, even that target was a compromise forced by power imbalances. “For them, two degrees was not survivable,” she said.

“Rising seas, saltwater intrusion, and extreme storms threaten to erase entire nations. When wealthy countries demanded scientific proof, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was tasked with studying the difference between 1.5 degrees Celsius and 2 degrees,” she added.

The findings showed that 1.5 degrees is significantly less destructive, though still dangerous.

In research published in Nature, Professor Gupta argues that one degree Celsius is the just boundary, as beyond that point climate impacts violate the rights of more than one per cent of the global population—around 100 million people.

She noted that the world crossed the one-degree threshold in 2017 and is likely to breach 1.5 degrees by 2030.

She stressed that promises of cooling later in the century ignore irreversible damage, including melting glaciers, collapsing ecosystems, and lost lives.

“If Himalayan glaciers melt,” she said, “they won’t come back. We will be living with the consequences forever.”

A question of responsibility

Climate justice and development are closely linked. Every basic right—from water and food to housing, mobility, and electricity—requires energy.

“There is a belief that we can meet the Sustainable Development Goals without changing how wealthy people live. That doesn’t work mathematically or ethically,” Professor Gupta said.

Her research shows that meeting basic human needs carries a significant emissions footprint and that wealthy societies must cut emissions far more aggressively to create carbon space for others to realise their rights.

“Failing to do so turns inequality into injustice,” she said.

Climate change and displacement

Displacement is among the clearest consequences of climate injustice, yet international law still does not recognise climate refugees.

Professor Gupta explained that climate change first forces adaptation, such as shifting to drought-resistant crops. When adaptation fails, people absorb losses of land, livelihoods, and security. When survival becomes impossible, displacement begins.

She said most climate displacement occurs within countries or regions, not across continents.

“Moving is expensive, dangerous, and often unwanted,” she noted, adding that proving causation remains a major legal challenge.

As attribution science advances, she said, it may become possible to integrate climate displacement into international refugee law.

“That,” she added, “will be the next step.”

A broken legal framework

Professor Gupta said climate harm has been difficult to address through human rights law due to fragmented international legal systems.

“This fragmentation allows states to compartmentalise responsibility,” she said. “Environmental treaties, human rights conventions, trade agreements, and investment regimes operate in parallel worlds.”

She noted that climate harm has long been discussed in technical terms—carbon levels, temperature targets, and emission pathways—without focusing on human impacts.

That is beginning to change.

In a landmark advisory opinion, the International Court of Justice clarified that climate obligations must be assessed alongside human rights and environmental agreements.

“It finally tells governments: you cannot talk about climate without talking about people,” Professor Gupta said.

Climate change is transboundary

Assigning responsibility for climate change is complex because its impacts cross borders.

She cited a case in which a Peruvian farmer sued a German company for climate-related damage. While the court allowed the case, proving the link between emissions and harm remains challenging.

Professor Gupta said attribution science is increasingly making such links possible. The ICJ has now affirmed that continued fossil fuel use may constitute an internationally wrongful act.

“States are responsible not only for their emissions but also for regulating companies within their borders,” she said.

Climate stability as a collective human right

Rather than framing climate as an individual entitlement, Professor Gupta advocates recognising a collective right to a stable climate.

Climate stability, she explained, underpins agriculture, water systems, supply chains, and daily life.

Courts worldwide are increasingly recognising that climate instability undermines existing human rights, even if climate itself is not yet codified as one.

This view is now echoed at the highest levels of the United Nations.

Erosion of fundamental rights

Addressing the Human Rights Council in Geneva in June, Volker Türk warned that climate change is already eroding fundamental rights, particularly for the most vulnerable.

He also described climate action as an opportunity.

“Climate change can be a powerful lever for progress,” he said, if the world commits to a just transition away from environmentally destructive systems.

“What we need now,” he stressed, “is a roadmap to rethink our societies, economies, and politics in ways that are equitable and sustainable.”

Political will and responsibility

Professor Gupta said repeated withdrawals from climate commitments have weakened global trust, while a small group of wealthy countries continues to drive most new fossil fuel expansion.

She argued that market-driven approaches alone cannot solve a collective crisis.

“Climate change is a public good problem,” she said. “It requires rules, cooperation, and strong states.”

As Volker Türk concluded, a just transition must leave no one behind.

“If we fail to protect lives, health, jobs, and futures,” he warned, “we will reproduce the very injustices we claim to fight.”