Combating inequalities in the right to a safe, healthy and clean environment
- Author(s):
- Parliamentary Assembly
- Origin
- Assembly
debate on 29 September 2021 (28th sitting) (see Doc. 15349, report of the Committee on Equality and Non-Discrimination,
rapporteur: Ms Edite Estrela). Text adopted
by the Assembly on 29 September 2021 (28th sitting).
1. The United Nations Environment
Programme states that “human rights cannot be enjoyed without a safe,
clean and healthy environment; and sustainable environmental governance
cannot exist without the establishment of and respect for human
rights”. The relationship between the exercise of human rights and
the environment is increasingly recognised, and the right to a healthy
environment is currently set out in over 100 constitutions worldwide.
Despite this, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
has estimated that at least three people a week are killed protecting
our environmental rights, while many more are harassed, intimidated,
criminalised and forced from their lands.
2. The Parliamentary Assembly recalls the United Nations’ 17
Sustainable Development Goals, which include the declared ambition
to “end poverty, protect the planet and improve the lives and prospects
of everyone”, and its Decade of Action 2020-2030. It also refers
to the relevance of Articles 2 and 8 of the European Convention
on Human Rights (ETS No. 5), which set out the right to life and
the right to respect for private and family life, and to the obligations
undertaken by member States of the Council of Europe by acceding
to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
and by ratifying the 2015 Paris Agreement adopted at the 21st Conference
of the Parties (COP 21).
3. The Assembly draws attention to the 1998 United Nations Convention
on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making
and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (Aarhus Convention),
which addresses procedural law related to the environment and more
specifically aims to support “environmental democracy”.
4. The Assembly also recalls the Preamble of the Paris Agreement
that states “Parties should, when taking action to address climate
change, respect, promote and consider their respective obligations
on human rights, the right to health, the rights of indigenous peoples,
local communities, migrants, children, persons with disabilities
and people in vulnerable situations and the right to development,
as well as gender equality, empowerment of women and intergenerational
equity”.
5. The Assembly has addressed some of the issues relating to
climate change and its consequences in its recent texts, including
Resolution 2210 (2018) “Climate
change and implementation of the Paris Agreement” and
Resolution 2307 (2019) “A
legal status for ‘climate refugees’”. It is convinced that stronger
international norms, legislation and sanctions must be implemented
in order to guarantee the right to a safe, healthy and clean environment
for all. In this context, the Assembly welcomes the final declaration
adopted in February 2020 at the High-Level Conference on Environmental
Protection and Human Rights held under the aegis of the Georgian
Presidency of the Committee of Ministers, which called for pan-European
legal standards to be upgraded in the light of the urgent environmental
challenges posed by climate change today.
6. Just as access to the substantive right to a safe, clean and
healthy environment is unequally shared between regions, countries
and individuals, so is access to the procedural rights deriving
from them, which include the right to information, participation
in policy and decision making, and training. The Assembly urges all
member States to work to ensure that environmental rights are not
only a reality for all, but are developed in co-operation between
all represented groups, in particular those most affected by climate
change and adaptation policies.
7. According to the World Bank, between 2008 and 2013, global
inequality fell for the first time since the Industrial Revolution,
but the climate crisis is now reversing this positive trend. The
effects of climate change have a disproportionate impact on poor
countries, via both increased economic harm as a result of extreme weather
and the disproportionately increasing cost of reducing emissions.
The Covid crisis has also reopened the rifts between rich and poor
countries.
8. Individuals affected by inequalities in access to environmental
rights are caught up in a “vicious circle” of multiple discrimination.
People already affected by racism are harder hit by climate change,
for instance, and the same goes for the poorest groups, as adaptation
to climate depends largely on household wealth. Disadvantaged groups
are more exposed to the adverse effects of climate change, which
in turn increases their vulnerability to damage caused by natural
hazards and lowers their capacity to cope and recover.
9. Socially disadvantaged people and minorities also suffer from
stigmatisation that associates them with their living conditions,
which are most often forced upon them. Roma are relegated to sites
located on the margins of urban settlements, where they are obliged
to share the space with polluting industries, landfills, waste dumps
and other contaminated and contaminating installations. Their health
and safety are threatened, and in addition they become associated
with the negative images of their surroundings by the rest of the population.
Member States must distance reception areas for Roma and Travellers
from polluted areas, work with them to disassociate their way of
life from stigmatising and discriminating stereotypes and provide
them with adequate facilities to allow them to live safe and healthy
lives.
10. With regard to gendered differences, 70% of women living in
the countries hardest hit by climate change work in agriculture.
And 70% of the poorest people in the world are women. Climate change
affects children, the elderly, sick people and those in financial
hardship. On average, more women than men are elderly and/or suffer
from poverty. And it is predominantly women who look after children
and the sick. Climate change therefore places a disproportionate
burden on women worldwide.
11. The under-representation of women in decision-making bodies
must also be remedied: according to the European Institute for Gender
Equality, as well as the European Parliament, women are still under-represented in
the European Union’s decision-making bodies tasked with managing
the issue of climate change and at national level. In 2011, women
held only 18.2% of senior positions in the national ministries of
the EU-27 that are responsible for the environment, transport and
energy. It is therefore essential to integrate gender mainstreaming
into the management of environmental policies.
12. With respect to inequalities in access to the right to a safe,
healthy and clean environment resulting from economic differences
between and within countries, the Assembly calls for:
12.1 the implementation and strengthening
of the mechanism for financial assistance from “rich” to “poor”
countries provided for in the 1992 United Nations Convention on
Biological Diversity, by including additional obligations on developed
countries under the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change – in particular, the obligation to provide financial assistance
to developing countries and to facilitate the technology transfer;
12.2 a strengthening and streamlining of the clean development
mechanism of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol with a view to reducing greenhouse
gas emissions;
12.3 the strengthening and implementation of the commitment
by developed countries to help developing countries inherent in
the 2015 Paris Agreement, in particular by implementing its Article 9, which
provides for financial support in mitigation of and adaptation to
climate change, multisource mobilisation of climate finance, and
regular quantitative and qualitative reporting on this action;
12.4 respect and reinforcement of the principle of common but
differentiated responsibilities;
12.5 stronger regulations on housing development within countries,
drawing lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic which showed that for
the benefit of the whole population everyone must have adequate living
space and healthy living conditions, and that access to green spaces
is essential.
13. With respect to indigenous peoples, the Assembly:
13.1 insists on the necessity for
all new legislation to tap into the knowledge and experience developed over
centuries by communities whose traditions have preserved the strongest
links with and respect for the living world and are less anthropocentric
than others, in order for future policies to place higher priority
on the environment and take into account this world view;
13.2 calls on countries where indigenous peoples are living
to ensure they are consulted and take part in decisions related
to their lands and ways of living, and in particular that measures
taken in the name of protection of the environment (wind farms or
green constructions, for instance) do not affect their lives and
livelihoods;
13.3 calls on countries where indigenous people are living
to encourage and provide the means for representatives of indigenous
peoples to meet and exchange across national borders and internationally,
in order to share experiences and reinforce their position.
14. With respect to women’s access to and contribution to the
enjoyment of environmental rights, the Assembly calls for:
14.1 more gender-responsive climate
finance to be allocated, in particular at grass-roots and rural levels,
to enable women to work and increase their competences;
14.2 equal access to property and tenure rights for women in
all member States, in order for them to be in a secure position
from which they can build on their knowledge and experience, in
particular through community co-operation;
14.3 empowerment of women and girls to lead a just transition
to a green economy;
14.4 more quantitative and qualitative data collection on the
link between gender and environment, and a more enabling environment
for women and girls through education and training.
15. Concerning young people, the Assembly stresses the absolute
necessity to involve youth organisations and other young people
in the design of any new legally binding framework for environmental
rights, as a condition for success. Young people are acutely aware
of the state in which previous generations are leaving the planet,
are on the whole more respectful of the need to end wasteful and
damaging practices, and have shown their power to exert pressure
on governments and decision makers. In this context, the Assembly supports
the proposals currently under discussion to include youth representatives
more systematically in its work.
16. The Assembly emphasises that any new and specific legally
binding instrument must address all of the sources of inequalities
set out above, with the aim of minimising inequalities in the right
to a safe, healthy and clean environment. In the spirit of the Council
of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against
Women and Domestic Violence (CETS No. 210), a new text should include
a “four Ps” mechanism providing for prevention, protection, prosecution
and policies, and add to
this a fifth, which should be parliamentary
commitment.
17. Climate justice requires equal access not only to rights but
also to the means to uphold and defend these rights before the courts.
Also to this end, member States must allow non-governmental organisations
such as Notre Affaire à Tous in France and Oxfam at the international
level to continue their awareness-raising and advocacy work without
hindrance so that mentalities change at the same time as climate
injustices are denounced.
