When Climate Adaptation Is Imperative yet Elusive: Guatemala’s Test for Climate Justice

Guatemala perfectly illustrates the climate justice paradox: the countries that contributed least to climate change, and have lower financial and technological capacity to implement timely climate action, are often among the most vulnerable to climate impacts. Guatemala has barely contributed to greenhouse gas emissions (GhGs) that cause climate change. Yet the country is suffering from the effects of climate change. In 2005, Tropical Storm Stan caused more than 1,400 deaths, and over one half million affected in Guatemala, 70 percent of whom were indigenous peoples, causing U.S. $989 million in economic losses. In 2010, tropical storms Alex, Agatha, Frank, and Matthew killed 262 Guatemalans, injured 778, required the evacuation of 243,000 homes, and left another 76,000 homes damaged. Estimates are that 723,000 people were affected in the country, and the economic damage was U.S.$1 billion only for Agatha (Bosque 2011). Guatemala’s Homeland Security Unit for Disaster Reduction reported that in 2015 almost one million Guatemalans were affected by floods and landslides resulting from tropical storms, with 290 fatalities (República de Guatemala 2015a). In 2016, the Dry Corridor in Central America—affecting Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador—experienced a severe drought that left 1.5 million Guatemalans in need of humanitarian assistance

Did the Paris Agreement Fail to Incorporate Human Rights in Operative Provisions? Not If You Consider the 2016 DGs

The implementation of the Paris Agreement on climate change should follow a rights-centred approach, not only because negative climate change impacts can directly affect several human rights, but also because actions to address climate change may also provoke unintended human rights consequences. During the negotiations that led up to the signing of the Paris Agreement in December 2015, states included an explicit reference to human rights only in the preamble of the legal norm, negotiating other direct references to human rights out of operative provisions. The outcome of negotiations raised the question of whether states have missed an opportunity to positively and unquestionably secure a rights approach to climate action post-2020. Using a contextual analysis of other international law developments that occurred alongside the adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2015, especially the international agreement on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), this paper argues that states have properly integrated a human rights dimension into key operative provisions of the Paris Agreement, albeit indirectly. The first part of this paper describes how negotiations led human rights to feature only in the preamble of the Paris Agreement. The second part describes how states have integrated a human rights dimension into the concept of sustainable development under the SDGs. The third section describes how states have woven sustainable development references into several of the operative provisions of the Paris Agreement. The fourth part argues that an integrated interpretation of international law leads to the conclusion that human rights have been indirectly incorporated into key operative provisions of the Paris Agreement that reference sustainable development and discusses some of the implications for climate action

Differentiation in International Environmental Law: Has Pragmatism Displaced Considerations of Justice?

The Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) scholarly movement seeks to assess and to advance the ‘promise of international law to transform itself into a system based, not on power, but justice’, by considering how global norms impair or advance the interests of states in the Global South. This chapter seeks to contribute to the TWAIL scholarly project by examining whether international environmental law (IEL)’s norms and mechanisms have been a source of international legal innovation by challenging entrenched global socio-economic and power imbalances, making this field of law more supportive of the interests of the South. This chapter uses a TWAIL approach to understand evolution and innovation in IEL in the context of the growing South-South divide, as some emerging economies’ significant contributions to global environmental problems and their financial and technological capabilities to protect the global comment environment set them apart from other developing countries. It considers whether IEL has incorporated innovative norms and mechanisms in this changing geopolitical context that allow it to promote environmental justice at the global level

Equitable Allocation of Climate Adaptation Finance - Considering Income Levels Alongside Vulnerability

The 2015 Paris Agreement elevates the goal of climate adaptation to the same level of importance as the goal of climate mitigation, and emphasizes the need to mobilize finance for climate adaptation in developing countries. As of February 2017, however, the financial gap for climate adaptation remained monumental. With the administration of US President Donald Trump threatening to interrupt American financial flows to the climate regime, developing countries are expressing growing concern about the ability of developed country parties to mobilize enough finance to meet the sizeable costs of their climate adaptation needs. In this context, the question of how to equitably allocate scarce adaptation finance among competing developing countries has gained renewed relevance. The operating entities serving the financial mechanism of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), such as the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the Adaptation Fund (AF) and the Green Climate Fund (GCF), have granted two groups of countries — the small island developing states (SIDS) and the least developed countries (LDCs) — priority access to adaptation resources. Adaptation funds do not clearly differentiate among developing countries beyond these two priority group categories. The primary criterion for allocation of adaptation finance among developing countries outside the LDCs or SIDS groups has been “vulnerability to the adverse effects of climate change.” However, political agreement on the concept of climate vulnerability has proven elusive, and therefore operating entities have considerable discretion in deciding which countries are considered particularly vulnerable. In practice, high-income developing countries such as Chile, with higher capacity to mobilize private finance and domestic public finance for climate adaptation than lower-middle-income countries such as Guatemala, have been able to access a sizeable share of scarce adaptation finance. The current formula has proven insufficient to address important equity concerns in the allocation of adaptation finance among developing countries. This paper argues that the operating entities of the financial mechanism serving the Paris Agreement, especially the GCF, should incorporate an objective, income-based criterion based on gross national income (GNI) per capita to complement the subjective criterion of vulnerability as primary guidance, ensuring a more equitable allocation of scarce climate adaptation finance to those countries with lower financial capabilities

Climate Finance and Transparency in the Paris Agreement - Key Current and Emerging Legal Issues

The success of the Paris Agreement depends in large measure on the legal and operational details of the “enhanced transparency framework” under article 13, including the transparency framework for climate financial support. The transparency framework for financial support will guide how parties are to report the progress toward meeting their commitments to provide financial support for climate action in developing countries and, where support is received, on its use. Developed countries’ pledge to provide financial support to developing countries was a cornerstone of the compromise that enabled the virtually consensual global adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2015. This financial pledge will remain crucial throughout the implementation of the Paris Agreement. Transparency on how this financial support is actually going to be delivered is essential to maintain trust and to promote broad compliance with the climate mitigation and climate adaptation commitments under the Paris Agreement. Yet, almost three years after the Paris Agreement adoption, many aspects of the transparency framework for financial support remain unclear. This paper unpacks key current and emerging legal aspects of climate finance and the transparency framework for financial support in the Paris Agreement, ahead of the twenty-fourth Conference of the Parties (COP24) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), to take place in December 2018 in Katowice, Poland. The paper argues that the transparency framework for support should be designed as an accountability tool for developed countries’ obligation to provide financial support to climate action in developing countries. Furthermore, the paper argues that a transparency framework for financial support can only serve to build a comprehensive and effective accountability system if it also covers the financial contributions from emerging economies and high-income developing countries to lower-income developing countries

Indigenous Environmental Rights and Sustainable Development: Lessons from Totonicapán in Guatemala

The chapter argues that in order to contribute to a more comprehensive theoretical understanding of the many nuances of the social dimension of sustainable development, IEL scholars should engage more systematically with emerging national and international research on Indigenous alternative perspectives on environmental governance. The approach highlighted here is distinct from existing discussions related to environmental justice and Indigenous peoples, which highlights the disproportionate environmental impacts Indigenous peoples suffer as a racialized social group, because of their close cultural and existential interaction with the environment. The aim is to move from treating Indigenous peoples as victims of environmental racism, to appreciating their active role in shaping alternative forms of natural resources management and environmental stewardship that better integrate the social dimension of sustainable development. We recognize that this is just a first exploration of the theme, which deserves more scrutiny and further empirical research. We intend this exploratory work to be an invitation to other environmental law scholars to engage in more systematic conversations with the scholarship on Indigenous Rights and Indigenous legal traditions, when carrying out research on the social dimension of sustainable development, particularly the cutting-edge work Indigenous law scholars in the Americas are undertaking

Emerging Issues in International and Transnational Law Related to Climate Change - International Environmental Law Consultation Workshop

The International Law Research Program (ILRP) of the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) held its first multi-stakeholder international environmental law consultation workshop on February 18, 2015. Under Chatham House Rule, in a round table format, there were 29 participants, with 19 making introductory comments. Participants represented the following stakeholder groups: think tanks, private legal practice, public sector (municipal, provincial and federal), non-governmental organizations (NGOs), Canadian and foreign university faculties of law and other relevant faculties, private sector and scholarship students

Genotype and phenotype landscape of MEN2 in 554 medullary thyroid cancer patients: the BrasMEN study

Multiple endocrine neoplasia type 2 (MEN2) is an autosomal dominant genetic disease caused by RET gene germline mutations that is characterized by medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) associated with other endocrine tumors. Several reports have demonstrated that the RET mutation profile may vary according to the geographical area. In this study, we collected clinical and molecular data from 554 patients with surgically confirmed MTC from 176 families with MEN2 in 18 different Brazili an centers to compare the type and prevalence of RET mutations with those from other countries. The most frequent mutations, classified by the number of families affected, occur in codon 634, exon 11 (76 families), followed by codon 918, exon 16 (34 families: 26 with M918T and 8 with M918V) and codon 804, exon 14 (22 families: 15 with V804M and 7 with V804L). When compared with other major published series from Europe, there are several similarities and some differences. While the mutations in codons C618, C620, C630, E768 and S891 present a similar prevalence, some mutations have a lower prevalence in Brazil, and others are found mainly in Brazil (G533C and M918V). These results reflect the singular proportion of European, Amerindian and African ancestries in the Brazilian mosaic genome83289298CONSELHO NACIONAL DE DESENVOLVIMENTO CIENTÍFICO E TECNOLÓGICO - CNPQCOORDENAÇÃO DE APERFEIÇOAMENTO DE PESSOAL DE NÍVEL SUPERIOR - CAPESFUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO - FAPESPFUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL - FAPERGSSem informaçãoSem informação2006/60402-1; 2010/51547-1; 2013/01476-9; 2014/06570-6; 2009/50575-4; 2010/51546-5; 2012/21942-116/2551-0000482-