[16/12/2009] GENEVA – At the opening of the Copenhagen conference on climate change, twenty UN human rights experts, including Olivier De Schutter, stated that a “weak outcome of the climate change negotiations threatens to infringe upon human rights”.
The Special Rapporteur warns that only climate policies deeply rooted in a human rights regime can guarantee minimized impacts upon the most vulnerable.
“This is not a theoretical debate. There are real cases of violations of the right to food linked to climate policies”. Most importantly, Prof. De Schutter insists that strengthening the right to food and mitigating climate change can be mutually supportive. “Countries should exploit the synergies between combating climate change and fighting against hunger: Innovative agroecological modes of production, such as agroforestry and low external input agriculture, improve food production and incomes; and they have a positive impact on climate through reduced use of fossil fuels and carbon stocking in the case of agroforestry”.
The Special Rapporteur bolsters his message with a new report from the Human Rights Institute of Columbia University in New York which he commissioned. This report highlights how the climate change and human rights regimes have failed to coordinate their agendas and to collaborate to each other's mutual benefit, despite the common objective of preserving human welfare.
| ReadPDF | Press release “Climate change, a ticking time bomb for global food security” (december 2009) |
| ReadPDF | Foreword of the report “Climate Change and The Right to Food. A Comprehensive Study” (3 pages, published by the Heinrich Böll Foundation, 2009) |
| ReadPDF | Summary of the report “Climate Change and The Right to Food. A Comprehensive Study” (10 pages, published by the Heinrich Böll Foundation, 2009) |
| ReadPDF | Report “Climate Change and The Right to Food. A Comprehensive Study” (155 pages, published by the Heinrich Böll Foundation, 2009) |
| ReadPDF | Joint statement of the U.N. human rights experts on the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference (december 2009) |
| YouTube | Video message of the Special Rapporteur |