Tiempo Climate Newswatch

Oxfam has called on the industrialized nations to base their climate policies on existing international human rights principles and stop using economic excuses to avoid their responsibilities. "Climate change is a matter of international justice," said Kate Raworth, author of the new report on climate justice from Oxfam. "Human rights principles give an alternative to the view that everything - from carbon to malnutrition - can be priced, compared and traded," she continued. "These principles must be put at the heart of a global deal to tackle global climate change."

The Oxfam report identifies three areas where current policy diverges from existing human rights principles. Rich countries’ failure to cut their emissions since 1992 have put the world at a high risk of exceeding a catastrophic level of warming, which would cause widespread violation of rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration. Adaptation financing is under-resourced. US$2 billion is needed just to meet the most urgent and immediate adaptation needs of the 50 least developed countries but total contributions to that end now stand at just US$92 million. Rich countries are failing to deliver sufficient finance and technology to help poor countries shift to low-carbon pathways and realize their right to development. The report has been submitted to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, which is currently reviewing the relationship between international human rights and climate change.

A new set of international laws may be needed as the Arctic opens up due to climate warming, according to experts gathered at a recent meeting in Iceland. "Many experts believe this new rush to the polar regions is not manageable within existing international law," said A H Zakri, head of the United Nations University's Institute of Advanced Studies in Yokohama, Japan. Shipping passages along the north coasts of Russia and Canada have both thawed this year.

There is concern, for example, that the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which covers the rights of states to impose restrictions such as compulsory pilots for ships in "particularly severe climatic conditions" or when ice covers the sea for "most of the year," may have to be revised. The definition of "particularly severe" conditions could become a problem, warns Tullio Scovazzi of the University of Milano-Bicocca in Italy. WWF is calling for a new international convention to protect the Arctic as escalating industrial activity increases the risk of oil spills.

The New Zealand parliament has agreed to the establishment of an emissions trading scheme, which will start operation in 2009. The scheme will cover all sectors of the economy, with a phased start for different sectors. It will include agriculture, responsible for around half the nation's greenhouse gas emissions. "For the first time we will start factoring in the true cost of greenhouse gas emissions into our economy," said David Parker, minister for climate change.

There has been concern about the economic impact of emissions trading. Federated Farmers warned that the scheme would "cost New Zealand significant real money and is unlikely to achieve the global outcomes sought." Rio Tinto has said that it would "put the [Tiwai Point aluminium] smelter on the path to closure." The phased start for different sectors has also been criticised. While welcoming the scheme, Trevor Sikorski of Barclays Capital in London commented that "it's really from 2010, when most of the big power producers come in, that it starts to look interesting." New Zealand aims to be carbon neutral across the energy sector by the year 2040.