Climate change - why the fuss?

Sometimes it is hard to remember why people make a fuss about climate change and global warming. In the politically charged arena of online advocacy the language of the issues has been framed by the denihilist procrastinators, so that most discussions of consequences revolve around whether or not climate change is 'catastrophic', whether or not warnings are 'alarmist' (crying wolf), whether or not projections of harm with large uncertainties are useful for policy discussions.

All of these, deliberately, miss the point, the reasons why action to mitigate and adapt are urgent, and reveal the moral vacuum which is inhabited by too many people these days.

So, here is a reminder of why I bother to have a blog and to comment on websites and fora such as Quora. These are my reasons. Some co-bloggers will have similar motives, others will have their own, but for me, this is the bottom line.

People will suffer.

Recent work has shown the link which already exists between both emergency and systemic situations and their consequences. Not just storms, floods and wildfires, which make dramatic TV and therefore feature in the media, but drought, seasonal shifts threatening food supply chains, evapo-transpiration effects, disease vector changes; there is really quite a long list.

Inasmuch as these measured effects are either affected or exacerbated by the changing climate -  and the argument is not that they are not affected, but the extent to which a measurable difference can be identified and isolated - the problems which exist now are overshadowed by the problems which will exist soon.

So, people have already suffered, and more people will suffer. Many more.

There is a strong general agreement that, whilst balancing other social factors, a move to reduce the upper limit of the changes down the line (through mitigation) will actually reduce the extent and degree of suffering.

Recent discussions on Quora have enlightened me to contemporary attitudes to the harm expected from climate change; there are people who think this is not important, that the suffering of others does not matter.

At the more radical end, it would be surprising if others hadn't worked out what I have calculated and reached the conclusion that by the end of this century, and quite likely well before this, many millions of people will have either died or been permanently displaced by the various upheavals which result from and are magnified by climate change. For some people, this is perceived as a 'good thing'.

So there are already two opposing forces pulling in different directions when it comes to the question of why climate mitigation is necessary.

On one side, we have identified that people are suffering and will suffer, and that at least some of this suffering is preventable. Our duty/responsibility is clear - if we can act to reduce the suffering of others, we should act. This is a baseline in the very notion of society. There is a further principle too, that if we choose not to act when we have the means to do so, then we are culpable in that suffering. Most particularly, our political leaders, who have executive power and common responsibility, are on the line for allowing suffering without intervention or assistance, where these would prevent it.

On the other side, we are conscious that population stress is another magnifier of suffering and that environmental and ecological problems, along with infrastructure problems, in part exist because of the strain put on them by increased consumption demand purely from the pressure of numbers. An analyst taking the very long view might conclude that allowing a degree of suffering for the time being, so that population pressures are eased down the line, could be a better solution.

But this is very harsh on the victims. One reason why climate impact projections focus on economic or environmental damage is that these have a degree of measurability and are thus amenable to modelling. Conversely, the extent and degree of human suffering - people being harmed, is much more difficult to quantify, since it is also affected by a cluster of magnifiers and causes which are more or less connected to climate. Nonetheless, the IPCC, WHO, UNEP and UNHCR. along with other agencies, have placed their analysis in the public record, and it makes for ugly reading.

The more recent projections suggest that there will be several million additional premature (and unnecessary) deaths from climate related impacts by 2050 alone. The current estimates include 160,000 per year already in the system, rising to 250,000 a year out to 2030-2050.

Later, I'll write about the error we make in assessing the personal consequences of climate inaction, but there is still a lot more to say.

For the time being, let this sink in. Not very long ago, there was no doubt that the untimely deaths of six million people as a consequence of a state policy was such an appalling crime that the perpetrators with command responsibility were tried and executed for their decisions. This was the Holocaust.

What is the material difference, especially to the victims, between that situation and this? What is the moral difference between that situation and this? For those who promote caution or outright denial of the issues linked to climate change, I ask - are you, morally, any better than those people? Are you, in effect, wearing a symbol-laden armband in support of the unspeakable? How will you be judged?

Beyond the rhetoric - is Climate Inaction a Crime against humanity?

In my 'speech' I used the term. by coincidence the same expression was used at the UN by the President of the Seychelles: 

"But how does that help us when we continue to ignore the truth? Climate change – on our current, avid path – is a crime against humanity.  We are all guilty.  And we are all victims. But increasingly, SIDS themselves, are refusing to be victims."

The full text of Mr Michel's (short) speech is here. SIDS refers to the Small Island Developing States group, of which Seychelles is a member.

Such a claim is, of course, rhetorically dramatic, but is there any substance to the idea that a Crime against Humanity may be committed, in the event that a binding International Protocol is not adopted at COP21 in Paris next year?

The aim of the next couple of posts, on the legal question of climate obligations aims to explore the idea that a failure of the Body Politic to sign a binding Protocol under the terms of the UNFCCC at Paris next year might constitute a criminal and prosecutable offence.

The meaning of the term has broadened in recent years. Since the Rome Statute in 2002, a 'crime against humanity' is defined thus:

For the purpose of this Statute, "crime against humanity" means any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:[25]
(a) Murder;
(b) Extermination;
(c) Enslavement;
(d) Deportation or forcible transfer of population;
(e) Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law;
(f) Torture;
(g) Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity;
(h) Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender as defined in paragraph 3, or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law, in connection with any act referred to in this paragraph or any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court;
(i) Enforced disappearance of persons;
(j) The crime of apartheid;

(k) Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health;

 The statute's explanatory memorandum also adds additional content for clarity:

(Crimes against Humanity) are particularly odious offenses in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human beings. They are not isolated or sporadic events, but are part either of a government policy (although the perpetrators need not identify themselves with this policy) or of a wide practice of atrocities tolerated or condoned by a government or a de facto authority. However, murder, extermination, torture, rape, political, racial, or religious persecution and other inhumane acts reach the threshold of crimes against humanity only if they are part of a widespread or systematic practice. Isolated inhumane acts of this nature may constitute grave infringements of human rights, or depending on the circumstances, war crimes, but may fall short of meriting the stigma attaching to the category of crimes under discussion. On the other hand, an individual may be guilty of crimes against humanity even if he perpetrates one or two of the offences mentioned above, or engages in one such offense against only a few civilians, provided those offenses are part of a consistent pattern of misbehavior by a number of persons linked to that offender (for example, because they engage in armed action on the same side or because they are parties to a common plan or for any similar reason.) Consequently when one or more individuals are not accused of planning or carrying out a policy of inhumanity, but simply of perpetrating specific atrocities or vicious acts, in order to determine whether the necessary threshold is met one should use the following test: one ought to look at these atrocities or acts in their context and verify whether they may be regarded as part of an overall policy or a consistent pattern of an inhumanity, or whether they instead constitute isolated or sporadic acts of cruelty and wickedness.

The most obvious reason to say that 'climate inaction' is not a CAH (crime against humanity) is that the definition specifies an attack and an intent. In this sense it follows the usual logic of criminal law, that a crime requires an agent, a victim or victims, and an intent on the part of the agent.

But there are aspects of the impacts of climate inaction which, from the point of view of the (present or future) victims, have the characteristics of a CAH, without a particular agent. The IPCC AR5 attributes high confidence to climate impacts including death, sickness and other effects on human populations which would certainly fall into the category of 'causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health'.

In addition, it could be said that: ' a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human beings'... 'are part ... of a government policy (although the perpetrators need not identify themselves with this policy)'...'other inhumane acts reach the threshold of crimes against humanity only if they are part of a widespread or systematic practice'... 'in order to determine whether the necessary threshold is met one should use the following test: one ought to look at these atrocities or acts in their context and verify whether they may be regarded as part of an overall policy or a consistent pattern of an inhumanity...' all might be viewed as descriptive of the impacts of climate inaction.

But the definition requires agency and intent. 

However, there are other elements of (International) Law  which might be considered relevant to the discussion at hand. Whilst it would be hard to establish that any individual or state has committed an act with malicious intent which constituted a CAH, one might reasonably ask, since there are an indeterminately large number of 'victims', i.e, people whose experience would include death or 'great suffering or serious injury', as well as a number of specifiable breaches of Human Rights, if the existence of the effect (the 'harm') does not imply the presence of an offence?

There are a number of further considerations which I will look at in the next post. These include - the culpability involved in a 'failure to act to prevent harm', 'nonfeasance', the international concept of the 'responsibility to protect', the ideas of peremptory norms, 'actio popularis', and other matters.