A/HRC/44/48 72. The physical health consequences of climate change have been well documented for some time. By contrast, the effects on the right to mental health have become better understood in recent years. 45 The emotional and existential realization of the magnitude of the climate problem and the often shockingly limited responses are increasingly experienced, particularly by children and young people. Mortality, owing to heat waves and climate change, disproportionately impacts people who are institutionalized. 73. The importance of the natural environment to social relationships and community life is enshrined in many national constitutions. The inextricable relationship of health and climate change is recognized in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. In the Paris Agreement, States were called upon to promote and consider the right to health in their actions to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Indeed, a rights-based approach, with mental health at its heart, can strengthen climate responses, fortify community relationships and citizen activism, and improve sustainability and well-being. 74. More work is needed to understand how threats to the environment and a lack of human engagement with the natural world may contribute to the subsequent breakdown of “human ecosystems” with the loss of social and cultural resources and damage to community life. Being able to live with concern for, and in relation to, the natural world fulfils psychological needs for “nature relatedness” and is associated with positive outcomes for attention, anger, fatigue and sadness, higher levels of well-being and lower levels of physiological stress.46 Healthy, non-violent relationships include not only human relationships and their small and large groups, but also the relationship between humankind and nature. Climate change threatens that precious relationship and must be given more urgent attention. 75. Greater attention should also be paid to the right to mental health in the context of adaptation strategies. Where severe weather events occur, States must provide, individually and through the framework of international assistance and cooperation, timely access to high-quality, rights-based support, that is responsive to the particular needs of persons affected by severe weather events and integrated into existing primary, general health- and social care services. States must take urgent measures to restore and protect existing green spaces to support community connections with nature, explore the creative use of the environment as a way to build relationships, including with the natural world, and facilitate individual and community healing. 47 Such measures can catalyse community action for broader climate justice activism across generations, encouraging a broadening of alliances for the disability rights community and unifying movements through sustainability and resilience. C. Digital surveillance 76. Advances in digital technology are transforming the capabilities of States, global tech giants, including Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon, and private entities to carry out surveillance on entire populations to an unprecedented degree. By linking massive amounts of data collected from various sources, such as street cameras (with face recognition software), the administrative data of government agencies, banks, retailers, Internet searches and social media, detailed personal information can be captured and analysed without the individual’s permission or awareness. That information can then be used to categorize an individual for commercial, political or additional surveillance purposes. 77. There are multiple ways in which that degree of non-transparent surveillance, carried out by either State or non-State actors, can be harmful to individual mental health and to the breakdown of trust in society and between people and the State. For example, 45 46 47 See Katie Hayes and others, “Climate change and mental health: risks, impacts and priority actions”, International Journal of Mental Health Systems, vol. 12, No. 28 (2018). See Daniel E. Baxter and Luc G. Pelletier, “Is nature relatedness a basic human psychological need? A critical examination of the extant literature”, Canadian Psychology, vol. 60, No. 1 (February 2019). See Jules Pretty and others, “Improving health and well-being independently of GDP: dividends of greener and prosocial economies”, International Journal of Environmental Health Research, vol. 26, No. 1 (2016). 17