Towards a just transformation: climate crisis and the right to housing

The Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, Mr. Rajagopal, presented his report, "Towards a Just Transformation: Climate Crisis and the Right to Housing", to the Human Rights Council in Geneva on March 8, 2023. The report highlights the impact of the climate crisis on housing and the need for a just and human rights-compliant transformation.

 

The report notes that the climate crisis poses a fundamental threat to the enjoyment of the right to adequate housing, with housing being more frequently destroyed by floods, hurricanes, wildfires, and rising sea levels. At the same time, housing is a major contributor to the climate crisis, with the way we build, heat, cool, and seal land with housing and infrastructure contributing to 37 percent of carbon dioxide emissions alone.

 

International human rights law defines adequate housing as security of tenure, availability of services, affordability, habitability, accessibility, appropriate location, and cultural appropriateness. In addition, the report notes that the climate crisis requires the recognition of sustainability as an element of the right to adequate housing. A just and human rights-compliant transformation is necessary to ensure that current and future generations have access to adequate housing.

 

The Special Rapporteur identifies several relevant obligations under international law, such as preventing foreseeable harm caused by climate change, supporting adaptation and mitigation efforts, avoiding conduct that would create a foreseeable risk of impairing the enjoyment of the right to adequate housing in other states, reducing global emissions contributing to the climate crisis, ensuring that actions to address climate change are compliant with human rights, preventing violations of the right to adequate housing caused by state policies or by corporations or investors, and providing an effective remedy for violations of the right to adequate housing caused by emissions accelerating the climate crisis or by failure to take necessary adaptation measures.

 

The report also highlights how extreme weather events and slow-onset events have an impact on the right to adequate housing, forcing people to migrate when homes become uninhabitable. Climate change is already strongly contributing to the migration from rural areas to cities, often resulting in inadequate living conditions and a lack of security of tenure.

 

Some measures to strengthen climate resilience and public investments in energy efficiency may reduce housing affordability, leading to climate gentrification. Resettlement and relocation for disaster prevention or climate adaptation can result in the forced relocation of entire communities, forced evictions, and arbitrary displacement. Certain projects implemented under climate mitigation programs or to protect nature or rainforests have displaced local communities, resulting in the loss of livelihoods and housing, without adequate prior consultation, remedies, or compensation.

 

Finally, the report highlights how marginalized groups are often the most exposed to climate events and are frequently left out of climate adaptation actions, more likely to be negatively affected by harmful climate mitigation and (mal)adaptation, and less likely to benefit from relief and reconstruction efforts. Policies must be adapted to their specific needs, they must be consulted and allowed to participate in decision-making, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation at all levels of climate action. The Special Rapporteur recommends that states ensure climate projects comply with the right to adequate housing, adopt legislation to protect this right without discrimination, improve household energy efficiency, invest in affordable carbon-neutral social housing, and establish an international mechanism for redress and compensation for climate-induced housing impacts.

 

Read the summary of the report here.