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	UN Court: Countries must go beyond Paris Agreement to protect Oceans by WMO, Climate Change News, agencies   Aug. 2024   The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) State of the Climate in the South-West Pacific 2023 report details how sea level rise in the region is above the global average. Sea surface temperatures have risen three times faster than the global average since 1980. During that time marine heatwaves have approximately doubled in frequency since 1980 and are more intense and are lasting longer.   The report was released by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo at the Pacific Islands Forum in Tonga. It was accompanied by a special briefing document on Surging Seas in a Warming World, described by Mr Guterres as “an SOS on sea level rise.”   “A worldwide catastrophe is putting this Pacific paradise in peril,” said Mr Guterres.“ Global average sea levels are rising at an unprecedented rate. The ocean is overflowing.”   “The reason is clear: greenhouse gases – overwhelmingly generated by burning fossil fuels – are cooking our planet. And the sea is taking the heat – literally.”   Despite accounting for just 0.02 per cent of global emissions – the Pacific islands are uniquely exposed. Their average elevation is just one to two meters above sea level; 90 percent of the population live within 5 kilometres of the coast and half the infrastructure is within 500 metres of the sea, said Mr Guterres. But the problem is global, he said.   “Surging seas are coming for us all – together with the devastation of fishing, tourism, and the Blue Economy. Across the world, around a billion people live in coastal areas threatened by our swelling ocean. Yet even though some sea level rise is inevitable, its scale, pace, and impact are not. That depends on our decisions,” said Mr Guterres, reiterating his urgent calls for drastic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions and increasing funding for climate adaptation.   "The survival plan for our planet is simple: Establishing a just transition for the phaseout of the fossil fuels that are responsible for 85 per cent of the emissions of greenhouse gases. All countries must produce national climate plans — nationally determined contributions — by next year, aligning with the 1.5°C upper limit of global heating".   "The Group of 20 (G20) — the biggest emitters responsible for 80 per cent of those emissions — must step up and lead, by phasing out the production and consumption of fossil fuels and stopping their expansion immediately. When Governments sign new oil and gas licenses, they are signing away our future. The Pacific Island States’ ambition for a fossil-fuel-free Pacific is a blueprint for the G20 and for the world".   “Climate change has become a global crisis and is the defining challenge that humanity currently faces. Communities, economies and ecosystems throughout the South-West Pacific region are significantly affected by its cascading impacts. It is increasingly evident that we are fast running out of time to turn the tide,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo.   “The ocean has taken up more than 90 percent of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gases and is undergoing changes which will be irreversible for centuries to come. Human activities have weakened the capacity of the ocean to sustain and protect us and – through sea level rise – are transforming a lifelong friend into a growing threat,” she said. “Already we are seeing more coastal flooding, shoreline retreat, saltwater contamination of freshwater supplies and displacement of communities.”   The State of the Climate in the South-West Pacific 2023 report highlights 34 reported hydrometeorological hazard events in 2023 – most of them storm or flood related – directly impacting more than 25 million people in the region.   Sea level rise   In much of the western tropical Pacific, sea level has risen approximately 10–15 cm (4–6 in), nearly twice the global rate measured since 1993. In the central tropical Pacific, sea level has risen approximately 5–10 cm (2–4 in), according to the State of the Climate in the South-West Pacific 2023 Report.   Rising sea levels have resulted in dramatic increases in the frequency of coastal flooding since 1980. According to the Pacific Islands Climate Change Monitor 2021, notable increases include: Guam from 2 to 22 times a year; Penrhyn, Cook Islands from 5 to 43 times a year; Majuro, Republic of the Marshall Islands from 2 to 20 times a year; Papeete, French Polynesia from 5 to 34 times a year; and Pago Pago, American Samoa from 0 to 102 times a year.   Global mean sea level will continue to rise over the 21st century in response to continued warming of the climate system, and this rise will continue for centuries to millennia due to continuing deep ocean heat uptake and mass loss from ice sheets.   Sea Surface Temperature   Over 1981-2023, nearly the entire South-West Pacific region shows ocean surface warming, reaching rates of more than 0.4°C per decade north-east of New Zealand and south of Australia. This is about three times faster than the global surface ocean warming rate (global mean sea surface temperature has increased over recent decades at a rate of about 0.15°C per decade)   Marine heatwaves   Marine heatwaves have become more intense and have approximately doubled in frequency since 1980. From the 1980s to 2000s the average duration of marine heatwaves in much of the Pacific region was within the five to 16-day range. However, this has increased markedly since 2010, with most of the Pacific now suffering heatwaves of eight to 20 days – or even longer.   Even under moderate climate warming scenarios, marine heatwaves will become more frequent and last longer in the coming years, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).   The increasing intensity of marine heatwaves has far-reaching implications, from adverse impacts on fish stocks and coral reef resilience, to toxic algae blooms and species distinction for most severe and persistent extremes. This has a major impact on ecosystems, economies, and livelihoods in the Pacific.   Ocean acidification: The ocean absorbs an estimated 25 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions. As a result, ocean acidification has increased globally over the past four decades. Measurements collected show a more than 12 per cent increase in acidity over the period 1988–2020.   Significant declines in surface ocean chlorophyll and estimated phytoplankton size since 1998 are detectable across major portions of the Pacific Islands region. This has major implications for the marine food chain.   http://wmo.int/news/media-centre/climate-change-transforms-pacific-islands http://www.un.org/climatechange/reports/sea-level-rise http://press.un.org/en/2024/sgsm22342.doc.htm http://www.ipsnews.net/2024/08/un-secretary-general-warns-of-brutal-impacts-of-climate-change-for-pacific-islands/ http://fossilfueltreaty.org/sids4-outcome http://fossilfueltreaty.org/news   21 May 2024   Countries need to go beyond their commitments under the Paris Agreement to protect the oceans from the impact of greenhouse gas emissions, a United Nations tribunal on maritime law said on Tuesday.   A coalition of small island nations behind the case hailed the long-awaited legal opinion issued by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) as a “historic” victory.   The court found that greenhouse gas emissions absorbed by oceans can be considered pollutants and states must do whatever they can to reduce them.   The opinion is not legally binding but supporters of the case hope it can help influence climate negotiations and be used as a precedent in future court cases.   Prime Minister Gaston Browne of Antigua and Barbuda said the decision “marks a historic milestone in our collective journey towards environmental justice and climate governance”.   “The ITLOS opinion will inform our future legal and diplomatic work in putting an end to the inaction that has brought us to the brink of an irreversible disaster”, he added.   Landmark case   Antigua and Barbuda is among nine small island states that last year asked Hamburg-based tribunal ITLOS to clarify the state responsibilities on climate change under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).   The 1982 convention has 164 countries as parties, with the notable exception of the United States.   The treaty requires its signatories to prevent, reduce and control marine pollution. But it does not explicitly identify greenhouse gas emissions as pollutants, prompting island nations to seek an opinion on whether that would qualify.   They also asked the tribunal to spell out what the countries should do to cut down emissions given their impact on the oceans.   In submissions to the proceedings, most countries acknowledged that greenhouse gas emissions pollute the oceans, but they disagreed on what obligations the maritime treaty imposed on their actions related to climate change.   Polluters pushback   China and India challenged the tribunal’s jurisdiction, arguing that issues relating to climate change should be handled within the UN climate change (UNFCCC) regime.   While accepting the tribunal’s authority to give an opinion on the matter, wealthy nations including the European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan and Australia said the Paris Agreement lays out the rules and procedures necessary to address climate change and comply with the requirements of UNCLOS.   The tribunal’s opinion should not be “imposing more stringent obligations than those already agreed” under the Paris Agreement, the EU statement said.   But the tribunal took a different view. It said “complying with the obligations and commitments under the Paris Agreement” would not be enough to satisfy the country’s duty to protect the oceans.   That is because the Paris Agreement does not require countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions “to any specific level according to a mandatory timeline”, but leaves them freedom to set their own climate goals.   The tribunal’s opinion “confirmed that the obligations under the Paris Agreement set a floor, not a ceiling for states to act to prevent greenhouse gas emissions”, said Tiffanie Chan, Policy Officer at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.   Existential threat   One of the planet’s greatest carbon sinks, the ocean absorbs about 25% of all carbon dioxide emitted by human activities and has captured 90% of the excess heat generated by those emissions. Global oceans are experiencing unprecedented heat, with surface temperature records broken every day since March 2023.   For small island states, combatting global warming is a matter of survival. The South Pacific nation of Tuvalu could be completely submerged by the end of the century at current rates of emissions and without extensive measures to adjust to climate change.   Eselealofa Apinelu, Tuvalu’s Attorney General, said she had travelled for over 24 hours to reach Hamburg but did not want to miss this “historic moment”.   “We have to do everything that we can to make sure that we can find a solution to our challenges”, she said. “This is an important first step in holding the major polluters accountable, for the sake of all humankind”.   Climate lawyers and campaigners said the tribunal’s opinion could influence climate negotiations and push the countries most responsible for the climate crisis to raise their ambition to cut emissions when they submit the next round of national climate plans due in early 2025.   Payam Akhavan, the legal counsel for the nine island nations, said the case was borne out of “frustration with the failure of the COP process” to achieve its objectives. “The turn to international law should simply shape future negotiations to ensure that the climate change regime is more robust and that it has more teeth than it presently does”, he added.   Legal experts are also hoping that the decision could form a significant precedent and influence upcoming legal opinions by the Inter-American Court on Human Rights and the International Court of Justice, which are also considering countries’ climate obligations.   http://www.climatechangenews.com/2024/05/21/un-court-countries-must-go-beyond-paris-agreement-protecting-oceans/ http://www.justiceinitiative.org/newsroom/itlos-advisory-opinion-on-climate-harm-and-the-marine-environment-a-summary http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/05/law-sea-tribunals-judgment-marine-environment-and-climate-change-underscores http://www.ciel.org/news/historic-climate-opinion-states-must-protect-oceans-from-greenhouse-gas-emissions http://wwf.panda.org/wwf_news/press_releases/?11343466/WWF-Law-of-the-sea-ruling-is-an-important-milestone-for-climate-and-ocean-action http://theconversation.com/a-new-ruling-says-countries-including-nz-must-take-action-on-climate-change-under-the-law-of-the-sea-230420 http://insideclimatenews.org/news/21052024/greenhouse-gas-harming-oceans-advisory-opinion/
	The critical role of social protection in strengthening resilience to climate change by Global Coalition for Social Protection Floors   This policy brief argues for a strategic use of climate funding, and in particular for its use in strengthening rights-based social protection systems.   Social protection is an important mechanism in managing climate-change related risks and their social and economic consequences as a short-term response to extreme weather events, but also supports people in adapting to climate change in the long-term.   1. Introduction   The right to social security is recognized in numerous human rights instruments, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. A fundamental human right, social security is a potent tool to combat discrimination and an essential instrument for reducing poverty and promoting social inclusion. It aims to provide income security and support at every stage of life for everyone, with particular attention to the most marginalized.   Social protection is interpreted as broader than social security and has many forms. It incorporates non-statutory or informal measures for providing social security, but encompasses traditional social security measures such as benefits, social assistance and social insurance. It includes regular systematised benefits of cash and in-kind transfers, public works programmes, social welfare services, health schemes, social insurance schemes, training and employment schemes.   Social protection has a critical role in helping individuals and communities to manage risks. Social protection systems allow people to reduce and cope with social and economic risks over their life span, such as illness, income loss due to disability, old age, death and injury.   They also provide support in the face of collective impacts and risks, including pandemics, economic downturns and the adverse effects of climate change, such as extreme weather events (storms, floods), slow onset events (sea level rise, desertification, droughts) and other climate change-related losses and damages.   Over the past two decades, climate change has altered and significantly exacerbated both individual and collective risks and impacts. Climate change effects are felt worldwide, but it is the most vulnerable population groups in low-income countries who are disproportionally exposed to climate-change related risks. Particularly at risk are small scale famers and fishing communities, indigenous peoples and poor people generally, both urban and rural.   Those most affected not only live in high risk-prone areas but work under precarious social and economic conditions. Climate change has direct impacts on their livelihoods, especially agriculture and fishing. Their contributions to the causes of climate change and greenhouse gas emissions are negligible, but they are the most exposed to its most damaging impacts. At the same time, they have fewer resources to cope and adapt to climate change.   Strengthening social protection systems, especially in those countries most affected by climate risk, is a contribution to climate justice. As we strive toward climate justice for all people in all countries, investment in social protection system building with climate finance mechanisms should form part of nationally determined action to mitigate climate change effects.   This policy brief argues for a strategic use of climate funding, and in particular for its use in strengthening rights-based social protection systems. Social protection is an important mechanism in managing climate-change related risks and their social and economic consequences as a short-term response to extreme weather events, but also supports people in adapting to climate change in the long-term.   The critical role of social protection in strengthening resilience to climate change has been recognized by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which recommends that climate adaptation should be integrated into social protection programmes (IPCC 2022).   2. Why social protection in a climate change context?   Social protection has an important role in strengthening the resilience to climate change in various ways:   Anticipation: Social protection helps people to better anticipate and mitigate the consequences of climate change by reducing their exposure and vulnerability. Regular cash benefits, cash for work or cash-plus programmes, for example, enable people to diversify livelihood strategies (e.g. by combining agricultural and non-agricultural elements), or to invest in preventive measures (e.g. improving irrigation, building dams).   Joining a social health insurance scheme or an unemployment protection scheme reduces vulnerability. In addition, rights-based, comprehensive and universal social protection can reduce climate vulnerability by addressing underlying issues of structural inequality that leave various groups, such as women and girls, persons with disability and older people, more exposed to the negative impacts of climate change.   Absorption: Social protection systems have a critical role in enabling individuals and communities to cope with and react to shocks. In the context of sudden onset disasters, such as floods or cyclones, quick and reliable payments of cash, in-kind transfers or insurance benefits play an important role in smoothing income and stabilizing livelihoods.   Social protection helps recipients maintain or restore their asset base, enabling them to recover more rapidly from crisis-situations than non-beneficiaries. Well-established social protection systems are able to respond to crises, for example, by temporarily expanding coverage to include all people hit by a shock or by increasing transfer values in order to enable people to withstand temporary emergencies (for example the Hunger Safety Net in Kenya).   If social protection systems are in place, strengthened and prepared to deal with an increasing number of collective shocks, there will be less need to set up ad hoc structures for emergency relief.   Adaptation: Social protection may help individuals, households and systems to strengthen their adaptive capacity to resist climate change in the long-term. It helps by supporting them to build up and invest in assets, diversify them, and improve their understanding of climate-related information for improved adaptation, for example by changing the planting patterns of their crops.   This is especially relevant when people are facing slow onset risks – that is, risks that evolve and become more severe over time, such as rising sea levels, changing rainfall patterns, land degradation or saltwater intrusion.   Social protection mechanisms can be linked to climate-specific measures. For example, in Ethiopia, India and Mexico public works programmes provide income support for recipients while building ecological resilience through the rehabilitation or enhancement of the natural resource base, such as watershed-management, afforestation programmes or irrigation work.   In Brazil, the Bolsa Verde (Green Grant) programme encourages recipients to conserve the ecosystem through zero deforestation in exchange for cash and provides complementary training programmes for alternative land use and employment opportunities.   Transformation: People’s capacity to manage climate change risk is largely determined by structural factors. Inequality and discrimination related to socio-economic status, gender, ethnicity, disability, age and location, constrains access to resources, such as access to land, to markets, to basic services or even to climate-change related information.   In addition, crises also tend to exacerbate inequalities, widening already existing gaps. Integrated social protection systems that address and are sensitive to these inter-related structural inequalities are effective ways to integrate, redistribute, and reduce inequality of opportunities, helping to build up transformative capacities.   Strengthening access of women to productive resources, increasing their bargaining power at household and community level or providing age and gender-sensitive information and training on livelihoods adaptation strategies are good examples.   Social protection can facilitate “just transitions”, that is, it can help to reshape economies and the bargaining power of sectors within them, by supporting a better alignment of workers’ social rights and the shift to a green economy (ILO 2015). Social protection has a critical role in supporting workers who are rendered jobless or lose their livelihoods as a result of decisions to move to more environmentally friendly methods of production, by providing both unemployment benefits and opportunities for retraining. Making jobs greener also should mean making them more decent. This is of particular relevance to people in precarious, informal or atypical working relations, who may otherwise bear the highest costs of a climate-related transitions (ILO 2015).   3. The Importance of a systemic approach to social protection   The extent to which social protection programmes can contribute to strengthening climate resilience depends to a large degree on programme design and the operational capacity of public institutions and bureaucracies to deliver services and transfers in a predictable and regular manner. Integrated management information systems, an up to date and comprehensive beneficiary registry, and effective and efficient payment and distribution mechanisms are all key ingredients for the establishment of sustainable and flexible social protection measures.   Establishing systemic and rights-based approaches to social protection remains the most critical aspect of durable and effective social protection schemes. The establishment of a social protection system that comprises integrated programmes that deliver the social protection guarantees to cover life course risks is an important precondition for the integration of climate-related measures. At the same time, it is worth remembering that those social protection programmes already in place, which may not have been specifically designed to address climate risks, already significantly help to increase resilience and coping mechanisms for people struggling with climate change.   These beneficial effects will be even stronger if social protection systems are strengthened to be climate sensitive and if coverage is expanded to deal with newer risks and affected geographical areas (IPCC 2022).   Working towards a systemic and climate resilient approach to social protection system strengthening will mean working collaboratively with a range of actors, including state institutions at local, regional, and national level, social partners, civil society actors and development partners. In a climate related context, this requires special attention to cross-sectoral budgeting, planning, designing, and implementation.   4. The human right to social protection in the face of loss and damage   Social protection is a human right and can be an important mechanism to advance international climate justice and to facilitate a rights-based approach to loss and damage (Kaltenborn 2023). However, there is also a need to address climate change injustice, derived from an unfair global architecture, which exacerbates the negative impacts of climate change on certain groups.   Building social protection systems that can respond to the ever more frequent climate-related shocks and crises will not by itself resolve all underlying problems, but it can at least strengthen access of those most at risk to their social and economic rights and reduce dependency on a financially and institutionally overstretched humanitarian aid sector, particularly in protracted crises situations.   5. The importance of increased financing for social protection   Social protection schemes across the world face a serious financing gap. This gap is disproportionally large in those countries, which are experiencing the most negative social and economic consequences of climate-change.   While high and middle income countries across the world spend on average 12.9 per cent of their GDP on social protection (excluding health), lower-middle income countries spend around 2.5 per cent and low-income countries a mere 1.1 per cent (ILO 2021).   While all countries, and in particular low-income countries, need to increase their domestic financial resources allocated to social protection, international financing sources, including bilateral and multilateral funding mechanisms, will remain important in the short and medium term. Such financing can also derive from the Loss and Damage Fund.   Apart from financing the reconstruction of infrastructure and humanitarian assistance in relation to climate-related losses and damages, support can also go to strengthening social protection systems to react to climate-induced risks and impacts.   This can be considered part of a comprehensive and integrated approach to ensuring that actions to address climate-related losses and damages, including financing such actions, are consistent with a country’s overarching development goals and objectives, including their national actions to achieve the SDGs, to realise human rights for all and to ensure the right to development for all.   6. Call for Action: strengthening Social Protection Systems for Climate Justice   Recognize the Role of Social Protection in Addressing Climate Change   Build universal social protection systems: support countries’ efforts to invest in integrated social protection systems for all throughout the life course rather than setting up isolated programmes to respond to for climate risks. This is the best strategy to reduce vulnerability of the most affected people and countries and to address the social and economic consequences of climate-related loss and damage in the future.   Establish and improve rights-based social protection schemes: states have a right to the resources needed to respond to loss and damage, caused by climate change, for which they bear minimal responsibility.   Individuals affected should also have a right to support. For example, in the event of climate-related illness (due to heat, changes in disease profiles etc.), crop loss or the death of a family member, individuals should have the right to access health services and to receive financial support to sustain their livelihoods.   This is where a predictable social security system makes an important difference to programmes of humanitarian aid; such programmes may not be rights based, not enforceable by law and may have limited durability.   Link Social Protection and Climate Action:   Include social protection in climate action: governments should explicitly include social protection measures and the expansion of social protection systems in their national climate strategies.   Integrate climate action in social protection policies: stronger coordination between crisis prevention, social protection and humanitarian aid is necessary to maximise the effectiveness of existing mechanisms and to avoid creating costly parallel structures and institutions.   Ensure social protection systems can be more responsive to sudden onset risks and link social protection to measures that incentivize people to protect the eco-system.   Invest in and highlight Social Outcomes for Climate-Related Financial Mechanisms:   Reduce poverty and inequality: in addition to the negative impacts of climate change on coastlines, agricultural lands or highways, equal consideration should be given to the effect on social cohesion, specifically on poverty, vulnerability and equity in the assessment of loss and damage experienced by different sectors of the population. This is all the more important as the impact of climate change is already exacerbating existing inequalities.   Increase predictable financing for social protection: in order to build social protection systems that can provide support in a predictable and reliable manner, finance institutions should explicitly include opportunities to finance social protection in their risk mitigation and risk management portfolios.   This includes the Loss and Damage Fund and other existing climate-related finance mechanisms such as the Green Climate Fund and the Adaptation Fund. There are other potential additional options to consider such as the allocation of special drawing rights (SDRs) and the introduction of financial transactions tax, etc. in international finance.   http://www.socialprotectionfloorscoalition.org/2024/05/policy-brief-social-protection-for-climate-justice-why-and-how/ http://www.ilo.org/publications/flagship-reports/world-social-protection-report-2024-26-universal-social-protection-climate http://www.developmentpathways.co.uk/blog/social-protection-is-a-prerequisite-for-climate-justice/ Visit the related web page
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