Category: Environment

Climate Change and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in Africa: The Urgent Need for Intersectional Approaches in Climate Change Policy and Governance

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Photo credit: @wambuigichobi | SMA

A Masai woman raises her fist as other women leaders look on at COP 27 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt during one of the debriefs by the Women and Gender Constituency. 

by Faith Lumonya, Esther Wambui, and Eunice Musiime

As global temperatures rise and the frequency of extreme weather events — such as floods, droughts, and heat waves — increases, climate change poses a growing threat to the progress of women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). Women face intersecting forms of vulnerability depending on their lived realities and experiences. For example, climate change reduces access to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services, increases rates of sexual risk behavior, and leads to earlier sexual debut, higher prevalence of infectious diseases, and gender based sexual abuse and exploitation — however, these realities are not taken into account in climate change policy and governance.

Climate-related disasters frequently disrupt health care services, limiting women’s access to essential SRH care such as contraceptives and maternal health services. Associated economic and infrastructural damage further hamper access to vital health resources, while the increased instability exacerbates risks of gender-based violence and reproductive health challenges, especially for vulnerable women and girls. Given these compounded risks, it is crucial to integrate SRHR into broader global and national climate adaptation efforts. 

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Lula’s environmental foreign policy, the global far-right, and the climate agenda

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by Danielle Hanna Rached and Denise Vitale

Donald Trump’s second term in office promises to bring turmoil to the global climate agenda. Against the scientific consensus that fossil fuel is leading the world to a climate breakdown, Trump has managed to impose his opportunistic views on the rest of the world. For the amount of $1 billion in campaign contributions, he initiated his vitriolic attacks against climate change (a “big hoax”), embraced the oil and gas industry (“liquid gold”), and vilified scientists and President Joe Biden’s clean energy legislation (“green new scam”). 

In such a scenario, our only hope lies in resistance that might be formed elsewhere. Since President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s election in 2022, Brazil has desperately tried to claim a leadership position on the issue. Brazil is home to 60% of the Amazon and host to COP30 next year, and Lula’s socio-environmental agenda has had a prominent position from day one. He appointed Marina Silva, a historical leader of the environmental movement, to head the Ministry of the Environment and created the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples to push forward the Indigenous agenda. 

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The impacts of climate change on the right to health in the United Kingdom 

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by Rossella De Falco

Climate change is one of the most pressing threats to health in the U.K. While climate change impacts everyone, marginalized groups and those with pre-existing health conditions are suffering the most, leading to greater health inequalities. This article explains how climate change impacts the health of the most marginalized populations in the U.K. from a human rights perspective. Read More

BPA-free Does Not Mean Bisphenol-free and How Regulators are Grappling to Deal with It

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by Jessica Samuels

You’ve likely seen BPA-free plastic water bottles and Tupperware in stores and opted to grab those over similar, non-labeled products. You probably didn’t know, however, that those products likely just contain other bisphenols, like BPS or BPAF, instead. Regulating bisphenols, a class of endocrine disrupting chemicals, has been challenging due to “regrettable substitution.” This phenomenon allows companies to truthfully label a product “BPA-free” while misleadingly substituting a harmful chemical (BPA) with an unknown or unforeseen hazardous chemical (BPS). Adequate protection of human health requires regulators to consider how bisphenols as a class can be appropriately restricted.

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Reinventing South African Trade Unions to Protect the Health of Informal Workers in the Face of Climate Change

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by Cecile de Villiers

South Africa is considered the most unequal country in the world, with stagnant economic growth and staggeringly high unemployment. More than five million or 31.2% of workers in South Africa find economic opportunities in the “informal economy,” often because there are fewer barriers (training, skills, regulation) to entering the sector. 

Informal workers comprise a diverse group who may work in the formal or informal economy. Precarity of employment is common among these workers, who include, for example, casual workers as well as owners of microbusinesses (such as street vending or Spaza shops). However, workers in temporary, part-time or on-call work arrangements may also fall within this category, depending on the circumstances.

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Climate Change and Health: Mobilizing Public International Law into Action

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This post launches a new Digital Symposium, Climate Change and Health: Mobilizing Public International Law into Action by Guest Editors Thalia Viveros Uehara and Alicia Ely Yamin. Check back for more posts twice a week!

The election of Donald J. Trump, who has called climate change a “hoax” and in his prior administration pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement, has sent shock waves through government and civil society leaders gathered at COP29. Argentina has walked away from the negotiations. Meanwhile, top leaders from the world’s largest polluting nations have not attended. COP29 was supposed to mobilize commitments to finance climate action as well as solidify the growing “health turn” within the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), including WHO guidance on integrating health into Nationally Determined Contributions. But that progress seems now in jeopardy.

This digital symposium makes clear that stakes could not be higher for global health. Projections estimate that between 2030 and 2050, climate-related health impacts could lead to an additional 250,000 deaths per year, largely from undernutrition, malaria, diarrhea, and heat stress. Furthermore, mental health conditions are worsening as extreme weather, livelihood losses, and wildfire smoke increase trauma.

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View on Namche Bazar, Khumbu district, Himalayas, Nepal.

Intersectionality, Indigeneity, and Disability Climate Justice in Nepal

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By Pratima Gurung, Penelope J.S. Stein, and Michael Ashley Stein

The climate crisis disproportionately impacts marginalized populations experiencing multilayered   and intersecting oppression, such as Indigenous Peoples with disabilities. To achieve climate justice, it is imperative to understand how multiple layers of oppression — arising from forces that include ableism, colonialism, patriarchy, and capitalism — interact and cause distinctive forms of multiple and intersectional discrimination. Only by understanding these forces can we develop effective, inclusive climate solutions.

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City with trash in foreground and smokestacks producing smog in background.

The Privatization of Cancer

Daniel G. Aaron 2 Comments

By Daniel G. Aaron

Cancer is fearsome, unstoppable even. So the story goes. Yes, you can secure some extra time with loved ones, and — if you are lucky —  maybe your cancer is susceptible to drugs or surgery. But for most people, cancer sounds like a death sentence. The proper response is to throw drugs and radiation at it.

Cancer seems so unstoppable that many have started rifling through their cosmetic products and foods to eliminate all possible carcinogens. Despite the fact we have regulatory regimes to ensure our food, makeup, the air, and drinking water are free of carcinogens, people don’t trust them. There is an intuitive sense that products are not well regulated, leaving individuals to moderate their own cancer risk. In fact, the majority of Americans do not hold strong trust in our health agencies like FDA and CDC.

In my forthcoming article, I argue that our cancer regulatory regimes inadequately protect the public. I believe deregulation is one form of the “privatization of cancer.”

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Beawar, Rajasthan, India, April 19, 2021: People roam at the main market.

Climate-Resilient and Accessible Architecture

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By Abhishek Kumar and Kavya Poornima Balajepalli

Climate change is the gravest threat currently faced by human civilization, and our architecture must internalize this reality of our time.

Knowing that the best way to protect people from climate chaos is by tackling inequality, it is critical that our built environment integrate universal design, as lack of accessibility has cascading and compounding impact on vulnerable communities, and especially persons with disabilities.

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Oil refineries polluting carbon and cancer causing smoke stacks climate change and power plants in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Understanding Climate and Disability Justice: Mitigating Structural Barriers to the Right to Health

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By Cynthia Golembeski, Ans Irfan, Michael Méndez, Amite Dominick, Rasheera Dopson, and Julie Skarha

People with disabilities — one of the most climate vulnerable groups — are often overlooked before, during, and in the aftermath of disasters.

Structural competency, which accounts for systemic “level determinants, biases, inequities, and blind spots,” is important to mitigating environmental racism and ableism in climate change and disaster policy. To achieve such intersectional approaches, the social determinants of health provide a useful framework. It explains how conditions, forces, and systems, including poverty, discrimination, underlying health disparities, and governance, not only shape daily life but also  vulnerability to climate-induced disasters (Figure 1). Decreasing vulnerability requires understanding and addressing upstream root causes of health inequities.

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