Amicus Curiae Brief presented by
ClientEarth
21 November 2016
risk of severe ill-health and disrupted livelihoods resulting from storm surges, sea
level rise and coastal flooding; inland flooding in some urban regions; and periods
of extreme heat;
systemic risks due to extreme weather events leading to breakdown of
infrastructure networks and critical services;
risk of food and water insecurity and loss of rural livelihoods and income,
particularly for poorer populations;
risk of loss of ecosystems, biodiversity and ecosystem goods, functions and
services.61
77. Scientific evidence of the physical impacts in the Philippines to date and those that
are predicted to occur in the coming decades should be considered in detail by the
Commission. Nevertheless, we submit that the Commission may accept, in the face
of overwhelming evidence as reported by the IPCC, that climate change is having
and will continue to have significant impacts on the human rights of the people of the
Philippines.62
6.2 Attribution of greenhouse gas emissions
61
See note 33 at p 65.
We also note that the emerging science of "extreme weather event attribution" now enables scientists to determine the extent to which anthropogenic
climate change has altered the probability or magnitude of a particular weather event or a class of weather events. The scientific definition of event
attribution is "the process of evaluating the relative contributions of multiple causal factors to a change or event with an assignment of statistical
confidence". These kinds of studies could in the future allow scientists to categorically conclude that a tropical storm in the Philippines, for example,
would not have occurred but for the influence of human greenhouse gas emissions. See Stott et al, 'Attribution of extreme weather and climate-related
events', WIREs Climate Change, 2015. Also see https://www.carbonbrief.org/in-depth-the-scientific-challenge-of-extreme-weather-attribution , and
https://www.nap.edu/catalog/21852/attribution-of-extreme-weather-events-in-the-context-of-climate-change
62
39
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