Climate engineering and human rights

ABSTRACT

In this Forum, three scholars discuss how climate engineering will pose novel human rights challenges, and may well force reconsideration of how human rights are applied as a guide to action. Following a short introduction, the first section introduces three competing approaches to human rights, arguing views which emphasize fairness or attempt to maximize satisfaction are more promising than one viewing human rights as inviolable ‘side-constraints’. The second section draws lessons from climate migration that are relevant for climate engineering in terms of incorporating a human rights approach to duties, rights, and participation. The final section compares the ‘needs-based’ and ‘rights-based’ approaches to humanitarian work in the face of climate change and climate engineering, raising concerns for duty-bearers and right-holders. The Forum’s conclusion draws together points of overlap and suggests a path forward for policy and research on this topic.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate engineering
• human rights
• solar radiation management
• ethics
• migration
• humanitarian

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Erratum

Acknowledgments

Thanks to the anonymous reviewers, Sikina Jinnah, and Simon Nicholson. Holly Jean Buck would like to acknowledge the Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future’s Academic Venture Fund. The ideas presented in Suarez’s contribution to this Forum are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, the IFRC, or its National Societies.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Model outputs of precipitation changes under climate change with and without solar radiation management tend to show that, from a global perspective, it may seem preferable to embrace the SRM option (assuming of course that such models capture all relevant feedbacks, delays, thresholds, and spatiotemporal shifts in atmospheric behavior that affect the most vulnerable communities, such as seasonality of rainfall for subsistence farmers).