Memorandum for the Petitioners | 86 B CLIMATE CHANGE RESULTS IN -- AND/OR THREATENS -- THE IMPAIRMENT, INFRINGEMENT, ABUSE, AND/OR VIOLATION OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS OF THE FILIPINOS. witness 8.39. Mr. During his testimony before the Honorable Commission, expert Kumi Naidoo, Executive Director of Amnesty International, highlighted that, “[c]limate change is a human rights issue not only because its devastating impacts affect the enjoyment of human rights, but also because it is a man-made phenomenon which can be mitigated.”374 8.40. As the climate changes the impacts on ecosystems, the increased frequency and intensity of extreme rapid onset events such as super typhoons, the slow onset impacts like sea-level rise and ocean acidification, and the increased potential for conflict and displacement, will continue to affect both human dignity and a broad range of human rights. As will be discussed below, these range from the fundamental right to dignity, to life, to a clean and healthy environment (or to a balanced and healthful ecology), including the right to a safe climate, to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, to self-determination and development, to food, to water and sanitation, to work and social security, to equality and non-discrimination, and to culture, particularly by vulnerable groups like women, children, those living in extreme poverty, Indigenous Peoples, and local communities. 375 8.41. The United Nations Human Rights Council has stated that “climate change poses an immediate and far-reaching threat to people and communities around the world and has adverse implications for the full enjoyment of human rights.’ UN special rapporteurs and other independent experts jointly issued a letter detailing the implications of climate change for human rights, to wit: A safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment is indispensable to the full enjoyment of human rights, including rights to life, health, food, water and housing, among many others... The most recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) brings into sharp focus the grave harm that climate change is already causing, and will continue to cause, to the °* Testimony of Kumi Naidoo, TSN dated 11-12 December 2018, p. 120, available at http://chr.gov.ph/wp- content/uploads/20 19/04/NICC-TSN-December-1 I-to-12-201 8-Metro-Manila-Philippines.pdf (last accessed on 12 September 2019). 3% Exhibit “PPPPPP” to “PPPPPP-1 1,” Statement of Katherine Lofts dated 16 September 2018, p. 2. 376 See Exhibit “B-1,” The Effects of Climate Change on the Full Enjoyment of Human Rights dated 30 April 2015 (Re: The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment on Considerations on Human Rights; Expert Report by John Knox, et al.), p.2, citing Human Rights Council Resolution 18/22.

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