CHR-NI-2016-0001 Statement of Resource Person, Katherine Lofts notes that “[i]n some regions, the combined effects of higher average temperatures and higher humidity will also create significant health risks.”73 The right to social security is also affected by climate change. This right represents an important legal guarantee aimed at ensuring the right of everyone to live a life in human dignity in situations of social distress such as old age, disability, unemployment, employment injury, illness, childbirth, death, or other unforeseen circumstances.74 The inter-linkages between climate change and social security are vast, as climate change impacts add stress to wide range of pre-existing social issues. The IPCC warns that climate change will significantly decrease access to basic necessities – for example, through lower crop productivity, increased costal erosion and flooding, and species extinction.75 Extreme weather events are also likely to increase rates of injury, malnutrition, disease and death, and will put a strain on States’ capacity to provide social security services in accordance with international standards. Moreover, the additional stresses caused by climate change will have a disproportionate impact on individuals and social groups that are already in positions of vulnerability, including women, children, older persons, Indigenous peoples, minorities, migrants, rural workers, persons with disabilities, the poor, and those living in particularly at-risk areas.76 (vii) Right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health77 The right to health is connected to, and dependent upon, the realization of other human rights contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the ICESCR, including the rights to food, housing, work, education, human dignity, non-discrimination, equality, the prohibition against torture, privacy, access to information, and freedom of association, assembly and movement.78 The right to health is also intimately tied to the right to life.79 Climate change is responsible for a range of increased health hazards affecting the enjoyment of the right to health. UNEP has noted that climate change is already having a negative impact on health, and observes that projected climate change scenarios will result in a range of worsening health impacts, including: 73 Ibid. CESCR, Day of General Discussion: The Right to Social Security (Article 9 of the Covenant), UN Doc E/2007/22/CRP.3 (15 May 2006) at para 5 (comment made by Mr. Alessio Bruni, Team Leader of the Treaty Implementation and Follow-up Team I at the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights). 75 IPCC, supra note 32. 76 OHCHR Discussion Paper, supra note 10 at 1. 77 See, eg: ICESCR, supra note 16 at Art. 12; UDHR, supra note 29 at Art 25; CRPD, supra note 29 at 25. 78 CESCR, General Comment No 14, UN Doc E/C.12/2000/4 (11 August 2000) at para 3. 79 UDHR, supra note 29 at Art 3; ICCPR, supra note 29 at Arts 6 and 9.
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