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Mirina Uchida Wins GPSS Best Thesis Award for her Research on Climate Change and Human Rights
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Mirina Uchida, a recent graduate of the Graduate Program in Sustainability Science (GPSS) at The University of Tokyo, has been honoured with the GPSS Best Thesis Award for her master's thesis titled "Opportunities and Challenges at the Crossroads of Climate Change and Human Rights." Her research makes a significant contribution to the critical intersection of climate change and human rights advocacy, offering a comprehensive roadmap for inclusive, rights-based solutions to address the climate crisis.
Below is the abstract of her award-winning thesis.
Title: Opportunities and Challenges at the Crossroads of Climate Change and Human Rights
Advisor: Professor Yasuko Kameyama
Climate change, as well as responses to climate change such as mitigation and adaptation measures, have human rights implications. An analysis of the interconnections between human rights and climate change can identify opportunities to design policies that could tackle issues associated with both climate change and human rights. The gray and academic literature uses the language of human rights in highly diverse and broad terms and often leaves unanswered the question of whose right(s) to what entitlements are at stake with climate change. This thesis aims to examine and identify the climate change implications for human rights and vice versa in order to offer a more comprehensive and explicit understanding of the human rights-climate change relationships.
Climate change, as well as responses to climate change such as mitigation and adaptation measures, have human rights implications. An analysis of the interconnections between human rights and climate change can identify opportunities to design policies that could tackle issues associated with both climate change and human rights. The gray and academic literature uses the language of human rights in highly diverse and broad terms and often leaves unanswered the question of whose right(s) to what entitlements are at stake with climate change. This thesis aims to examine and identify the climate change implications for human rights and vice versa in order to offer a more comprehensive and explicit understanding of the human rights-climate change relationships.
First, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) Working Group II (WGII) and Working Group III (WGIII) contributions are analyzed with regard to the content and context of the human rights language. It reveals that certain types of human rights of some particular groups of people and communities (i.e., Indigenous Peoples' rights to land) are discussed more than others in these reports. Second, the core international human rights agreements are examined in order to clarify what types of human rights are formally recognized and then to analyze how they are linked to climate change. Different types of human rights were identified through this process, which were then categorized into different themes, depending on the nature of their linkage to climate change. Third, the findings from the analysis of the IPCC reports and of the human rights documents are compared to identify overlaps and gaps. While some of the core rights recognized in the human rights documents are not discussed in the IPCC reports, certain rights that are emphasized in the reports are not of a legally binding nature. Fourth and finally, challenges at the crossroads of human rights and climate change are discussed, and opportunities for potential policy synergies are identified.