A/HRC/32/24
especially the rights to life, to health, to food and to environmental protection, now and in
the future. One of its most substantial projected impacts was on caloric availability. By
2050, climate change was expected to result in an additional 24 million undernourished
children. Elevated carbon dioxide levels were not only causing climate change, but also
directly decreasing the protein, mineral and vitamin content for many staple food crops.
The right to food in developing countries was particularly compromised and the resulting
impacts were disproportionately borne by poor women, children and other vulnerable
people, who had contributed the least to the problem.
22.
By 2050, climate change was predicted to increase severe child stunting by 23 per
cent in central sub-Saharan Africa and by 62 per cent in South Asia. Simultaneously,
increased global demand for animal foods and appetite for meat as a sign of wealth in the
developing world presented huge implications for climate change and human health. A
meat-based diet had a very high impact on emissions and was associated with increased
risks for non-communicable diseases when compared to more sustainable diets.
23.
Adequately addressing the complex challenges posed by climate change required a
theory of change that placed people’s right to life and to health at the centre of sustainable
development efforts. The Paris Agreement recognized human rights and the additional
benefits to health of mitigation actions. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
had identified actions that reduced emissions and at the same time improved health. These
included: reducing local emissions of air pollutants from energy systems through improved
energy efficiency and cleaner energy sources; designing transport systems that promote
active transport leading to lower emissions and better health; shifting consumption away
from animal products towards more sustainable and healthier diets; and providing access to
reproductive health services, including modern family planning, to improve child and
maternal health.
24.
Human rights needed to be considered in national climate adaptation plans, disaster
risk reduction and the work of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change. Climate finance should support effective measures that bring additional health
benefits and respect gender equality and equity principles. It should be innovative, long
term and additional to existing funding for poverty reduction and sustainable development.
To ensure gender equity, it was crucial to improve women’s access to education, land,
technologies, credit, social protection and resilient health systems. Loss and damage also
need to be addressed as a human rights and climate justice issue. In concluding, she called
for States as a matter of urgency to cut their emissions in order to limit warming below 1.5
degrees Celsius and commit to helping the most vulnerable to adapt to an increasingly
unpredictable world.
25.
The Coordinator of the Association for Indigenous Women and Peoples of Chad
stated that climate change had direct consequences on indigenous peoples’ health and
traditional lifestyles. Whether in the forest, in the Sahel or in the Taiga, the health of
indigenous peoples was directly related to the health of the environment, which provided
the water they drink, the food they eat and the medicines they use. Her community, the
Mbororo, were nomadic herders who were greatly affected by climate. In 2015, the rainy
season had been unpredictable and short, thereby threatening herds, reducing milk
production and causing the premature death of young cattle. Droughts increased respiratory
diseases, diseases related to malnutrition and waterborne diseases, such as cholera. Women
and young children were particularly affected. Medicinal plants were becoming rare,
threatening the passage of traditional knowledge and community health.
26.
She emphasized that these problems were not unique to her community but common
to indigenous peoples around the world. This was why they had fought to ensure that the
Paris Agreement incorporated human rights, including the rights of indigenous peoples and
of women. The Paris Agreement represented a step forward in recognizing indigenous
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