Climate crisis, women and children: between vulnerability and the urgent protection of their rights. Glimpses from the European continent

Abstract

Since the end of the 18th century, the burning and use of hydrocarbons has been the main source of energy used by mankind to achieve more developed societies, ignoring —at first — the high cost of natural resources involved. The use of this type of non-renewable energy has caused serious imbalances in the atmosphere and, in turn, a great impact on all the Earth's ecosystems, since any type of alteration in the atmosphere causes, as a consequence, further transformations in the rest of its elements.
The conclusions reached by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are the results of more than 30 years of research dedicated to the study of the climate system and its alterations. It is not, therefore, a diffuse and banal reflection to be downplayed, quite the contrary, as it recreates the present and future scenario to which legal science must respond.
Science, as usual, often leads the way in international rule-making and standard-setting processes, and has been decisive on climate change: there is an urgent need for a drastic reduction in the levels of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that human activities release into the atmosphere. Indeed, even if the Paris Agreement targets are met, resilience or adaptation and climate stability will be some of the greatest challenges facing humanity. There is now a clear scientific consensus on the unequivocal attribution of climate change to human activities. However, the impacts of climate variability are biased and the crosscutting issues that surround them, such as inequity and the vulnerability of multiple groups, such as women and children, are often displaced in the face of the severe damage already being done to the Earth's oceans, atmosphere, ice and biosphere, rapidly and pervasively.
The greenhouse effect is an inherently discriminatory phenomenon because it affects systemically, unequally and disproportionately not only people belonging to a certain group, but also constitutes an emerging, progressive and increasingly frequent and intense damage to societies and nations that have not reached their maximum levels of development, or that lack the measures or the technology to adapt to climate variability.
The purpose of this article is twofold. On the one hand, it aims to identify the direct consequences of anthropogenic global warming on women and children, interweaving the scientific basis with legal science, which will allow us to contextualize the current state of the situation in an objective manner; on the other hand, it aims to define the position of the international community on both issues, from a critical point of view, a human rights-based approach, and with a special reference to the European jurisdictional progress, which could contribute to enhance the international climate cooperation.  This also includes legal proposals based on the principles of equal treatment and opportunities between women and men, and intergenerational equity, the empowerment of citizens to receive quality environmental education, the participation and integration of both women and new generations in political decisions on issues that affect them, and their inclusion in the discussion and analysis of the impact of the climate emergency based on scientific knowledge.
This research is based on the axis of different theoretical frameworks, and seeks both to establish connections between different areas of knowledge and to provide an international legal response to the problem of global warming for women and children through the analysis of international law and its implementation. In addition, this study is based on the principle of scientific evidence that underpins the work of the IPCC and, more specifically, will build on the efforts of Working Group II (WGII) of the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) on impacts, vulnerability, and adaptation. In the international legal sphere, this paper aims to link two areas of international law as major references: international human rights law and the legal framework regulating climate change in the international forum.
With regard to the structure of this article, we will find an introduction to the state of the question, followed by the theoretical-methodological aspects that are intertwined in this research: the interweaving of postcolonial feminist theory, scientific knowledge and legal argumentation. The second section of this study aims to contextualize the impacts of climate change on ecosystems and the most vulnerable groups, with references to the contributions of Working Groups I and II of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report and other scientific studies that support the position of the vulnerability of women and children to the adverse effects of climate change. Within the second section, the IPCC has concluded that countries are already experiencing increasing impacts such as biodiversity loss, extreme weather events, land degradation, desertification and deforestation, sand and dust storms, persistent drought, sea level rise, coastal erosion, ocean acidification and mountain glacier retreat, causing severe disruption to societies, economies, employment, agricultural, industrial and commercial systems, global trade, supply chains and travel. It has also reported thata there has been a devastating impact on sustainable development, including poverty eradication and livelihoods, threatening food security and nutrition and water accessibility.
Furthermore, a sub-section has been created that will detail some of the impacts of climate change specifically on women and children. In this sense, it is evident that women's reproductive rights are affected, there is an increase in vector-borne diseases with discriminatory tendencies based on gender, the manifestation of socio-economic inequalities linked to climate change, marginalisation, and the lack of capacity of children to adapt to climate change.
The third section is devoted to providing a legal overview of the doctrine's position on the matter and the cases currently being heard in some courts where the plaintiffs are women and minors. This section highlights the impossibility of ignoring both the feminist approach and the intergenerational equity approach. It is also pointed out that in the elaboration of climate policies, it is not enough to draw up a list of insufficient and empty climate policies to comply with international commitments, since when it comes to demanding the jurisdictional protection of human rights in the context of the climate crisis, there are a series of complications rooted in the evidentiary capacity that governs any judicial procedure.
The conclusions section contains both a synthesis of the different sections of this article, as well as a series of legally and socially viable proposals that contribute to the knowledge of climate change, its different impacts, policies for prevention and adaptation to the risks of extreme meteorological phenomena and, if necessary, keys that reinforce the path towards climate litigation.