FOREWORD

FOREWORD: THE ROAD AHEAD

ANDREA DURBACH

Andrea Durbach is Emeritus Professor and was Director of the Australian Human Rights Centre (now Institute) at UNSW’s Faculty of Law and Justice from 2004-2017.

SOFIA GRUSKIN

Professor Sofia Gruskin directs the University of Southern California’s Institute on Inequalities in Global Health.

JUSTINE NOLAN

Justine Nolan is a Professor in the Faculty of Law and Justice at UNSW Sydney and Director of the Australian Human Rights Institute.

JANANI SHANTHOSH

Dr Janani Shanthosh leads the Health & Human Rights Program at the Australian Human Rights Institute and is a Research Fellow at The George Institute for Global Health.

Climate change represents a significant threat to the health and human rights of everyone around the world. Climate change is a health and human rights issue and must be recognised as such. The impacts of climate change are particularly severe for populations already suffering discrimination and marginalisation. It directly affects people’s rights – not only to health, but to education, employment, housing, work, water and food to name but a few. Increasingly human rights tools are being used to address climate-related health issues, but far more is needed. In the past five years, there has been a sharp rise in human rights-based climate change litigation and this year for the first time the Human Rights Council recognised a clean, healthy and sustainable environment as a human right. This change in approach to action on climate can pave the way for a policy landscape where climate, health and human rights are seen and addressed as symbiotic and not separate challenges to future prosperity. It was with this recognition that the Australian Human Rights Institute, the USC Institute on Inequalities in Global Health and The George Institute for Global Health, Sydney designed the ‘Health and Human Rights in the Climate Crisis: Charting Challenges and Solutions’ conference in October 2021. The conference provided a platform for cross-disciplinary learning and exchange across continents, generations and areas of focus, and showed the power of human rights tools to address our shared concern for the health of people and the planet. This included a focus on the link between the increasing burden on under-resourced public health systems, the exploitation of the natural world and altered climatic conditions. The conference brought together more than 500 youth leaders and students, First Nations and Tribal Peoples, academics and experts from 27 countries. Attendees heard from Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, who spoke powerfully about access to health and sustainable environments as a fundamental human right. Former Prime Minister of New Zealand, the Rt Hon. Helen Clark, raised the importance of government leadership, especially in addressing vested interests, and the importance of a vocal and organised civil society to apply pressure on governments to act. Youth leaders like Alexandria Villaseñor spoke about the right of future generations to be left a planet that is not just liveable but thriving. Banok Rind, a Badimaya Yamatji woman from Western Australia, highlighted the importance of having First Nations voices at the policy table so that climate solutions were not only about lowering emissions, but could ensure a just transition that includes Traditional Knowledges to inform healthy, equitable and rights-based outcomes. These powerful voices, among many others at the conference, all conveyed the same fundamental truth: climate change is here, it is now, and urgent action is needed if we are serious about protecting the health and human rights of current and future generations. Human rights are still inadequately considered but must form the basis of this response, particularly if we are to address the long-term health effects of climate change. The conference was organised in the leadup to the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), as we saw this as a crucial moment for global leaders to come together and get serious about action on climate change. Unfortunately, for now it seems, human rights issues were largely ignored. In the final outcome document, the call to fund a response to climate change for developing nations was also significantly watered down. If we are to make a difference and keep the hope of 1.5C alive, it is crucial that individual nations increase their ambitions in addressing current and emerging health and human rights concerns, and in setting their Nationally Determined Contributions to the Paris Agreement ahead of COP27 in 2022. This issue of the Human Rights Defender features contributions from the three student rapporteurs who attended the conference on behalf of the convening institutes, as well as reflections from some of the academic members of the conference working group.