Indigenous Futurism is a movement consisting of art,
literature, comics, games, and other forms of media which express
Indigenous perspectives of the future, past, and present in the context
of science fiction
and related sub-genres. Such perspectives may reflect Indigenous ways
of knowing, traditional stories, historical or contemporary politics,
and cultural realities.
Background
Grace Dillon, editor of Walking the Clouds: An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction,
encouraged stories through IIF, the Imagining Indigenous Futurisms
Science Fiction Contest. Lou Catherine Cornum is a writer, scholar, and
Indigenous Futurist known for their work Space NDNs. Chickasaw scholar Jenny L. Davis
emphasizes the importance of 'Indigenous language futurisms,' where she
shows that Indigenous languages are important to articulating and
understanding Indigenous temporalities.
Concept of time
The
concept of time in Indigenous Futurism moves away from Western
traditional interpretations, both culturally and within the genre of speculative fiction. Time, according to Indigenous Futurists, encompasses and connects the past, present, and future all at once. Artists may explore alternate histories, distant and near futures, separate timelines, time travel, the multiverse, and other topics in which time is not limited to a linear conceptualization. Historical themes of colonialism, imperialism, genocide,
conflict, the environment, trade and treaties, which have impacted
Indigenous cultures, are recurring and reexamined, creating new
narratives in the process.
Artists play with questions of race, privilege and "Whiteness", both in
history and within the speculative genre; they are expanded upon,
subverted, erased, reversed, etc., thereby linking culture to time,
space, and what lies in-between. The term biskaabiiyang (Anishinaabe), used by Dillon, exemplifies how Indigenous creators reflect on the impact of colonization
by returning to their ancestral roots, conflating past with present and
future, as well as reframing what the world would or could be like.
In other words, Indigenous Futurisms do not solely address the
future, but create a range of scenarios and phenomena in which
reimaginations of space, time, and Indigeneity are celebrated.
Literature
Literature
lends itself to many aspects of Indigenous Futurism. Many of the
stories revolving around Indigenous Futurisms contain an Indigenous main
character, however, this does not define the genre, when referring to
literature in Indigenous Futurisms we are referring to the Author, or
the conceptualized stories, as defined in Dillon's anthology.
Literature is currently the most diverse subject in Indigenous Futurism, works including: Love After the End, compiled by Joshua Whitehead, a collection of stories and perspectives from queer Indigenous peoples tackling colonialism and the ideas of hope.
Scholarly works including; Knotting Ontologies, Beading Aesthetics, and Braiding Temporalities, by Darren Lone Fight,
an examination of Native American literary epistemology and futurisms
including an analysis of the Indigenous Star Wars phenomena.
Visual art
An early source of collective Indigenous Futurisms is on the CyberPowWow website, a site launched by Skawennati (Mohawk) for Indigenous artworks starting in 1997 to 2004. It was a precursor to her TimeTraveller™Machinima series began with a 22nd-century Mohawk man.
Many pieces of Indigenous Futurist artwork contain iconography or symbolism that reference Indigenous oral history. Another major facet of Indigenous Futurist artwork is the adaptation of existing culture and nomenclature. For instance, artist Bunky Echo-Hawk's “If Yoda was Indian” displays show a new perspective on Yoda from the franchise Star Wars.
Kristina Baudemann focuses on storytelling and art and the integration of science fiction into Indigenous art in Indigenous Futurisms in North American Indigenous Art. She says that Indigenous people are resilient and sustainable and their art incorporates those characteristics. One specific Indigenous artist, Ryan Singer (Navajo Nation), paints in acrylic and silk-screens prints. He has two pieces of Princess Leia, from the Star Wars series that portrays the princess as Hopi, acknowledging George Lucas' cultural appropriation of the Hopi butterfly whorl hairstyle. In his first painting, Hopi Princess Leia (2009),
he shows the Hopi Princess Leia holding a gun pointing straight at the
audience while also staring directly at the audience as well. In his
second Hopi Princess Leia, named Hopi Princess Leia II (2010),
Leia is seen holding a bigger gun and still looking directly at the
audience. Baudemann analyses this depiction and says it creates
awareness of the colonial gaze, which is harmful to indigeneity. In these paintings Princess Leia is seen clad in a Hopi blanket, wearing the hairstyle typical to unmarried Hopi girls.
She is in front of her pueblo homes protecting them with her gun.
Baudemann emphasizes the idea that Hopi homes should be seen as homes
and not monuments that can be looked at by outsiders and they should not
be appropriated. Princess Leia, in the Star Wars
movies, loves her home and tries her hardest to protect it which is why
Singer chose Princess Leia to be depicted in these paintings.
Film
Indigenous Futurisms in film reflect non-colonial encounters such as utopian sovereignty and dystopian assimilation.
The continued development of Indigenous Futurist frameworks account for
the diversity of creative efforts and histories between the First
Nations, Inuit, and Native American filmmakers and communities to influence the outside world.
While
not as prominent as other mediums, video games provide a more hands-on
approach to the teaching and display of Indigenous Futurism. Representation of indigenous cultures has been part of video games for years, with iconic games such as The Oregon Trail
depicting Indigenous peoples. However, the specific genre of Indigenous
Futurism in video games is a relatively new concept and few prominent
games fall into this category.
Indigenous Futurist games range from games such as Thunderbird Strike, an action game where you take on the form of the legendary Thunderbird, gathering lightning to destroy mining equipment and factories on a terrorized and barren earth, to games such as Never Alone, which tells the story of a Iñupiaq and an Arctic fox as they explore a dire atmosphere and experience the mythology of the Alaska Natives for themselves. Thunderbird Strike features significant artistic components and lots of indigenous imagery. The indigenous creator of the game, Elizabeth LaPensée, calls the art style "woodland" or "x-ray," and it is greatly inspired by Anishinaabe culture. The game offers a form of protest specifically against the oil industry. Additionally, the popular game Fallout: New Vegas features a DLC titled Honest Hearts
that showcases Indigenous culture in a dystopian future. Various tribes
exist in the new region of Zion Canyon and the connection to nature is
showcased with rain and friendly dogs being introduced to Fallout: New
Vegas for the first time.
There has been controversy surrounding representation of Native people in video games, and iconic games such as The Oregon Trail have depicted Indigenous cultures to be dangerous and violent.
Many new video games have begun hiring consultants from the Native
community to ensure accurate representation, with the popular video game
Assassins Creed III collaborating on the game with the Mohawk Nation.
A recent Indigenous Futurist game, Terra Nova, was produced by Maize
Longboat, a member of the Mohawk tribe, and many other indigenous people
have been engaging in the production of video games centered around
indigenous themes.
Virtual reality
Virtual
reality (VR) is a medium in which the concept of screen sovereignty can
be used to combat misrepresentation of Indigenous people in media.
Indigenous VR makers are shaping the culture of technology through VR in
order to properly represent Indigenous people and their culture.
Currently, white media creators dominate the digital media field and
digital technology industries. Indigenous Matriarch 4
is a virtual reality company that provides Indigenous people with the
tools they need to participate in and remake the virtual world. Because
Indigenous people are often misrepresented in media, VR has become a
place to creatively express Native American culture and ideas.
Indigenous VR has also provided Indigenous people with the opportunity
to be leaders in a new technology field, and to be involved in
technology fields that previously excluded them and that had very little
representation of Native American and Indigenous communities.
Virtual reality is being used to create space and capacity for Indigenous creatives to tell their stories.
VR is used by many Indigenous practitioners to reimagine traditional
storytelling and express themselves and their culture, promote health
and wellbeing, and foster self-esteem and pride. New virtual platforms
have also been created that retell significant moments in Indigenous
history as well as connect to the present, like the platform AbTeC
Island (Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace).
The 2167VR Project (2017), in partnership with the Initiative for Indigenous Futures (TIIF), commissioned the works of many Indigenous artists such as Danis Goulet (Métis), Kent Monkman (Cree), Postcommodity and Scott Benesiinaabandan (Lac Seul First Nation), notable for his work Blueberry Pie Under a Martian Sky. This immersive project exhibits virtual reality works set 150 years forward in time, paralleling Canada's 150th anniversary, each offering a different perspective on the role Indigenous peoples and identities will have in building the future.
Exhibitions
To increase this movement's visibility and bring attention to Indigenous voices, the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) has established a branch, the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA), located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which collects and exhibits over 10,000 Indigenous works. The MoCNA has an exhibition entitled Indigenous Futurisms, featuring the works of 27 contemporary Indigenous artists. Following the pandemic, the MoCNA has transferred the collection to an online gallery and made available a VR experience which the public can access through their devices.
Related movements
The term Indigenous Futurism, more commonly written as Indigenous Futurisms, was coined by Grace Dillon, professor in the Indigenous Nations Studies Program at Portland State University. The term was inspired by Afrofuturism and Africanfuturism, all of which encapsulate multiple modes of art-making from literature to visual arts, fashion, and music.
Indigenous Futurisms are also connected to Chicanafuturism,
"a spectrum of speculative aesthetics produced by U.S. Latin@s,
including Chican@s, Puerto Ricans, Dominican Americans, Cuban Americans,
and other Latin American immigrant populations. It also includes
innovative cultural productions stemming from the hybrid and fluid
borderlands spaces, including the U.S.-Mexico border."
Criticism
Indigenous
Futurisms as a term has received mixed feedback among Indigenous
Brazilian musicians. Many Indigenous artists do not embrace this concept
because they view preserving culture to be much more important than
thinking about the future. For example, Indigenous rapper Kunumi MC,
disagrees with the term, arguing that it is a white man's term
unreflective of Indigenous people, saying: “We, native Indigenous people
living in tribes, don't think about the future,” he says. “The white
man has a vision of progress, not us. Our progress is to preserve our
culture ... to live in the present, I have to remember my past.”
List of Indigenous Futurists
Artists working within the field of Indigenous Futurisms include:Darren Lone Fight
(Mvskoke, Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara), a literary critic and professor
who runs Center for the Futures of Native Peoples at Dickinson College; Loretta Todd (Cree/Métis), a filmmaker who runs IM4, the Indigenous Matriarchs 4 XR Media Lab; Skawennati (Mohawk), a multimedia artist best known for her project TimeTraveller, a nine-episode machinima series that uses science fiction to examine First Nations histories;
Illustration of the different proposed methods of reflecting more sunlight to reduce Earth's temperature
Solar geoengineering, or solar radiation modification (SRM), is a type of climate engineering in which sunlight (solar radiation) would be reflected back to outer space to limit or offset human-caused climate change. There are multiple potential approaches, with stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) being the most-studied method, followed by marine cloud brightening (MCB). Other methods have been proposed, including a variety of space-based approaches, but they are generally considered less viable, and are not taken seriously by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
SRM methods could have a rapid cooling effect on atmospheric
temperature, but if the intervention were to suddenly stop for any
reason, the cooling would soon stop as well. It is estimated that the
cooling impact from SAI would cease 1–3 years after the last aerosol
injection, while the impact from marine cloud brightening would
disappear in just 10 days. Contrastingly, once any carbon dioxide is added to the atmosphere and not removed, its warming impact does not decrease
for a century, and some of it will persist for hundreds to thousands of
years. As such, solar geoengineering is not a substitute for reducing greenhouse gas emissions but would act as a temporary measure to limit warming while emissions of greenhouse gases are reduced and carbon dioxide is removed.
If solar geoengineering were to cease while greenhouse gas levels
remained high, it would lead to "large and extremely rapid" warming and
similarly abrupt changes to the water cycle. Rapid termination would significantly increase the threats to biodiversity from climate change.
In spite of this risk, solar geoengineering is frequently discussed as a
policy option because it is much faster and (in the short run) cheaper
than any form of climate change mitigation.
While cooling the atmosphere by 1 °C (1.8 °F) through stratospheric
aerosol injection would cost at least $18 billion annually (at 2020 USD
value), and other approaches also cost tens of billions of dollars or more annually, this would still be "orders of magnitude" cheaper than greenhouse gas mitigation, and the unmitigated effects of climate change would cost far more than that.
As of 2022, hundreds of studies have used climate models
to simulate the impacts of SRM on the various aspects of the Earth's
climate. In general, they show that it can combat many of the adverse effects of climate change, such as the increase in extreme weather, the decrease in soil moisture, slowdown of Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, Arctic sea ice decline and the melting of mountain glaciers.
However, they concur that is impossible for SRM to fully reverse
climate change and return the world to its preindustrial state, because
the scale of any intervention required to completely offset the recent
warming would substantially alter the weather patterns and the water cycle compared to the past, while ocean acidification would proceed until CO2
concentrations stop increasing. For the same reason, simply using SRM
to maintain present-day temperature would still alter the climate to
some extent. Climate models often struggle to correctly estimate regional impacts of global dimming caused by historical sulfateair pollution, and so there is only low confidence in the current projections of how solar geoengineering would affect regional climate and ecosystems.
Governing solar geoengineering is challenging for multiple
reasons, including that few countries would likely be capable of doing
it alone. For now, there is no formal international framework designed to regulate SRM, with aspects of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity or the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer
coming the closest out of the existing agreements. Thus, many questions
regarding the acceptable deployment of SRM, or even its research and
development, are currently unanswered.
Overview
Solar geoengineering (SG, or SRM) increases Earth's ability to deflect sunlight, e.g., by increasing the albedo of the atmosphere or the surface. While reducing the average temperature, it would not address ocean acidification. Climate models
project that SRN interventions would take effect rapidly, but would
also quickly fade out if not sustained. This means that their direct
effects are effectively reversible, but also risks a rapid rebound after
a prolonged interruption, sometimes known as termination shock. The US National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
stated in a 2021 report: "The available research indicates that SG
could reduce surface temperatures and potentially ameliorate some risks
posed by climate change (e.g., to avoid crossing critical climate “tipping points”; to reduce harmful impacts of weather extremes)."
Cirrus cloud thinning
(CCT), which is strictly not solar geoengineering but shares many of
the physical and especially governance characteristics as the other
methods.
Albedo enhancement, in which cool roofs and reflectors are used to increase the albedo
or reflectivity of the Earth's surface to deflect solar radiation back
into space or to decrease the need for air conditioning and reducing co2
as a result.
Regardless of the method used, there is a wide range of potential
deployment scenarios for solar geoengineering, which differ both in the
scale of warming they must offset, and their target endpoint.
Historically, the majority of studies consider relatively extreme
scenarios where global emissions are very high and are offset with
similarly high levels of SRM. More recently, research began exploring
alternatives like using SRM as an aid to avoid failing the Paris Agreement
goals of 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) and 2 °C (3.6 °F). It has also been suggested
that SRM is deployed to halve the current warming, as this may be less
disruptive to societies and ecosystems than attempting to reach the
preindustrial levels. However, this approach may also increase flood and wildfire risk in Europe. There have also been proposals to focus the use of SRM at the poles, in order to combat polar amplification of warming and the associated Arctic sea ice decline, permafrost thaw and ice sheet melt leading to increased sea level rise.
However, actual deployment of even the cheapest proposals is projected
to cost tens of billions of US dollars annually, so the decision to
deploy these interventions would not be taken lightly.
Means of operation
Averaged over the year and location, the Earth's atmosphere receives 340 W/m2 of solar irradiance from the sun. Due to elevated atmospheric greenhouse gas
concentrations, the net difference between the amount of sunlight
absorbed by the Earth and the amount of energy radiated back to space
has risen from 1.7 W/m2 in 1980, to 3.1 W/m2 in 2019. This imbalance - called radiative forcing - means that the Earth absorbs more energy than it lets off, causing global temperatures to rise. The goal of solar geoengineering would be to reduce radiative forcing by increasing Earth's albedo (reflectivity). An increase in planetary albedo of 1% would reduce radiative forcing by 2.35 W/m2, eliminating most of global warming from anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, while a 2% albedo increase would negate the warming effect of doubling the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration However, because warming from greenhouse gases and cooling from solar geoengineering would operate differently across latitudes and seasons,
a world where global warming is offset would still have a different
climate from the world where this warming did not occur in the first
place, mainly as the result of an altered hydrological cycle.
Potential roles
Solar
geoengineering may end up being deployed as an emergency solution to
climate change, but in the long run, it is intended to complement, not
replace, greenhouse gas emissions reduction and carbon dioxide removal. For example, the Royal Society
stated in its landmark 2009 report: "Geoengineering methods are not a
substitute for climate change mitigation, and should only be considered
as part of a wider package of options for addressing climate change. The IPCCSixth Assessment Report
concurs: "There is high agreement in the literature that for addressing
climate change risks SRM cannot be the main policy response to climate
change and is, at best, a supplement to achieving sustained net zero or
net negative CO2 emission levels globally".
Solar geoengineering's speed of effect gives it two potential roles in managing risks
from climate change. First, if mitigation and adaptation continue to be
insufficient, and/or if climate change impacts are severe due to
greater-than-expected climate sensitivity, tipping points,
or vulnerability, then solar geoengineering could reduce these
unexpectedly severe impacts. In this way, the knowledge to implement
solar geoengineering as a backup plan would serve as a sort of risk diversification or insurance.
Second, solar geoengineering could be implemented along with aggressive
mitigation and adaptation in order "buy time" by slowing the rate of
climate change and/or to eliminate the worst climate impacts until net
negative emissions reduce atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations.
(See diagram.)
Solar geoengineering has been suggested as a means of stabilizing regional climates - such as limiting heatwaves or Arctic sea ice decline and permafrost thaw, but there's low confidence about the ability to control geographical boundaries of the effect.
History
In 1965, during the administration of U.S. PresidentLyndon B. Johnson, President's Science Advisory Committee
delivered "Restoring the Quality of Our Environment", a landmark report
which warned of the harmful effects of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel
and mentioned "deliberately bringing about countervailing climatic
changes," including "raising the albedo, or reflectivity, of the Earth." As early as 1974, Russian climatologist Mikhail Budyko
suggested that if global warming ever became a serious threat, it could
be countered with airplane flights in the stratosphere, burning sulfur
to make aerosols that would reflect sunlight away.
Along with carbon dioxide removal, solar geoengineering was discussed
jointly as "geoengineering" in a 1992 climate change report from the US National Academies. The topic was essentially taboo in the climate science and policy communities until Nobel LaureatePaul Crutzen published an influential scholarly paper in 2006. Major reports by the Royal Society (2009) and the US National Academies (2015, 2021) followed.
As of 2018, total research funding worldwide remained modest, at less than 10 million US dollars annually. Almost all research into solar geoengineering has to date consisted of computer modeling or laboratory tests, and there are calls for more research funding as the science is poorly understood. Major academic institutions, including Harvard University, have begun research into solar geoengineering, with NOAA alone investing $22 million from 2019 to 2022, though few outdoor tests have been run to date. The Degrees Initiative is a UK registered charity, established to build capacity in developing countries to evaluate solar geoengineering.
The 2021 US National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
report recommended an initial investment into solar geoengineering
research of $100–$200 million over five years.
In May 2022, the Climate Overshoot Commission was launched to recommend
a comprehensive strategy to reduce climate risk which includes sunlight
reflection methods in its policy portfolio, and will issue a final
report prior to the 2023 UN Climate Change Conference.
Evidence of effectiveness and impacts
Climate models consistently indicate that a moderate magnitude of
solar geoengineering would bring important aspects of the climate - for
example, average and extreme temperature, water availability, cyclone
intensity - closer to their preindustrial values at a subregional
resolution.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded in its Sixth Assessment Report. SRM could offset some of the effects of increasing GHGs on global and
regional climate, including the carbon and water cycles. However, there
would be substantial residual or overcompensating climate change at the
regional scales and seasonal time scales, and large uncertainties
associated with aerosol–cloud–radiation interactions persist. The
cooling caused by SRM would increase the global land and ocean CO2 sinks, but this would not stop CO2
from increasing in the atmosphere or affect the resulting ocean
acidification under continued anthropogenic emissions. It is likely that
abrupt water cycle changes will occur if SRM techniques are implemented
rapidly. A sudden and sustained termination of SRM in a high CO2
emissions scenario would cause rapid climate change. However, a gradual
phase-out of SRM combined with emission reduction and CDR would avoid
these termination effects.
The 2021 US National
Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report states: "The
available research indicates that SG could reduce surface temperatures
and potentially ameliorate some risks posed by climate change (e.g., to
avoid crossing critical climate 'tipping points'; to reduce harmful
impacts of weather extremes)."
Solar geoengineering would imperfectly compensate for
anthropogenic climate changes. Greenhouse gases warm throughout the
globe and year, whereas solar geoengineering reflects light more
effectively at low latitudes and in the hemispheric summer (due to the sunlight's angle of incidence)
and only during daytime. Deployment regimes could compensate for this
heterogeneity by changing and optimizing injection rates by latitude and
season.
In general, greenhouse gases warm the entire planet and are expected to change precipitation
patterns heterogeneously, both spatially and temporally, with an
overall increase in precipitation. Models indicate that solar
geoengineering would compensate both of these changes but would do more
effectively for temperature than for precipitation. Therefore, using
solar geoengineering to fully return global mean temperature to a
preindustrial level would overcorrect for precipitation changes. This
has led to claims that it would dry the planet or even cause drought,
but this would depend on the intensity (i.e. radiative forcing) of solar
geoengineering. Furthermore, soil moisture
is more important for plants than average annual precipitation. Because
solar geoengineering would reduce evaporation, it more precisely
compensates for changes to soil moisture than for average annual
precipitation. Likewise, the intensity of tropical monsoons is increased by climate change and decreased by solar geoengineering.
A net reduction in tropical monsoon intensity might manifest at
moderate use of solar geoengineering, although to some degree the effect
of this on humans and ecosystems would be mitigated by greater net
precipitation outside of the monsoon system. This has led to claims that
solar geoengineering "would disrupt the Asian and African summer
monsoons," but the impact would depend on the particular implementation
regime.
People are concerned about climate change largely because of its
impacts on people and ecosystems. In the case of the former, agriculture
is particularly important. A net increase in agricultural productivity
from elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations and solar
geoengineering has also been predicted by some studies due to the
combination of more diffuse light and carbon dioxide's fertilization
effect. Other studies suggest that solar geoengineering would have little net effect on agriculture.
Understanding of solar geoengineering's effects on ecosystems remains
at an early stage. Its reduction of climate change would generally help
maintain ecosystems, although the resulting more diffuse incoming
sunlight would favor undergrowth relative to canopy growth.
Advantages
The
target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions can be achieved through a
combination of emission cuts and carbon dioxide removal, after which
global warming stops,
but the temperature will only go back down if we remove more carbon
dioxide than we emit. Solar geoengineering on the other hand could cool
the planet within months after deployment,
thus can act to reduce climate risk while we cut emissions and scale up
carbon dioxide removal. Stratospheric aerosol injection is expected to
have low direct financial costs of implementation,
relative to the expected costs of both unabated climate change and
aggressive mitigation. Finally, the direct climatic effects of solar
geoengineering are reversible within short timescales.
Limitations and risks
As
well as the imperfect cancellation of the climatic effect of greenhouse
gases, described above, there are other significant problems with solar
geoengineering.
Incomplete solution to elevated carbon dioxide concentrations
Solar geoengineering does not remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and thus does not reduce other effects from these gases, such as ocean acidification. While not an argument against solar geoengineering per se, this is an argument against reliance on it to the exclusion of emissions reduction.
Uncertainty
Most
of the information on solar geoengineering comes from climate models
and volcanic eruptions, which are both imperfect analogues of
stratospheric aerosol injection. The climate models used in impact
assessments are the same that scientists use to predict the impacts of
anthropogenic climate change. Some uncertainties in these climate models
(such as aerosol microphysics, stratospheric dynamics, and sub-grid
scale mixing) are particularly relevant to solar geoengineering and are a
target for future research.
Volcanoes are an imperfect analogue as they release the material in the
stratosphere in a single pulse, as opposed to sustained injection. Modelling is uncertain as little practical research has been done.
Maintenance and termination shock
Solar
geoengineering effects would be temporary, and thus long-term climate
restoration would rely on long-term deployment until sufficient carbon dioxide is removed.
If solar geoengineering masked significant warming, stopped abruptly,
and was not resumed within a year or so, the climate would rapidly warm.
Global temperatures would rapidly rise towards levels which would have
existed without the use of solar geoengineering. The rapid rise in
temperature might lead to more severe consequences than a gradual rise
of the same magnitude. However, some scholars have argued that this
termination shock appears reasonably easy to prevent because it would be
in states' interest to resume any terminated deployment regime; and
because infrastructure and knowledge could be made redundant and
resilient, allowing states to act on this interest and gradually phase
out unwanted solar geoengineering.
Some claim that solar geoengineering "would basically be impossible to stop." This is true only of a long-term deployment strategy. A short-term, temporary strategy would limit implementation to decades.
Disagreement and control
Although
climate models of solar geoengineering rely on some optimal or
consistent implementation, leaders of countries and other actors may
disagree as to whether, how, and to what degree solar geoengineering be
used. This could result in suboptimal deployments and exacerbate
international tensions.
There
is a risk that countries may start using solar geoengineering without
proper precaution or research. Solar geoengineering, at least by
stratospheric aerosol injection, appears to have low direct
implementation costs relative to its potential impact. This creates a
different problem structure. Whereas the provision of emissions reduction and carbon dioxide removal present collective action problems (because ensuring a lower atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is a public good),
a single country or a handful of countries could implement solar
geoengineering. Many countries have the financial and technical
resources to undertake solar geoengineering.
In 2000s, some have suggested that solar geoengineering could be
within reach of a lone "Greenfinger," a wealthy individual who takes it
upon him or herself to be the "self-appointed protector of the planet". Others disagree and argue that states will insist on maintaining control of solar geoengineering.
Subsequent research had dimmed this notion, as the annual costs of
around $18 billion per 1 °C (1.8 °F) of cooling are likely to be
prohibitive for even the wealthiest individuals.
Distribution of effects
Both
climate change and solar geoengineering would affect various groups of
people differently. Some observers describe solar geoengineering as
necessarily creating "winners and losers." However, models indicate that
solar geoengineering at a moderate intensity would return important
climatic values of almost all regions of the planet closer to
preindustrial conditions. That is, if all people prefer preindustrial conditions, such a moderate use could be a Pareto improvement.
Developing countries are particularly important, as they are more vulnerable to climate change.
All else equal, they therefore have the most to gain from a judicious
use of solar geoengineering. Observers sometimes claim that solar
geoengineering poses greater risks to developing countries. There is no
evidence that the unwanted environmental impacts of solar geoengineering
would be significantly greater in developing countries, although
potential disruptions to tropical monsoons are a concern. But in one
sense, this claim of greater risk is true for the same reason that they
are more vulnerable to greenhouse gas-induced climate change: developing
countries have weaker infrastructure and institutions, and their
economies rely to a greater degree on agriculture. They are thus more
vulnerable to all climate changes, whether from greenhouse gases or
solar geoengineering.
Lessened mitigation
The existence of solar geoengineering may reduce the political and social impetus for mitigation. This has generally been called a potential "moral hazard," although risk compensation
may be a more accurate term. This concern causes many environmental
groups and campaigners to be reluctant to advocate or discuss solar
geoengineering.
However, several public opinion surveys and focus groups have found
evidence of either assertion of a desire to increase emission cuts in
the face of solar geoengineering, or of no effect.
Likewise, some modelling work suggests that the threat of solar
geoengineering may in fact increase the likelihood of emissions
reduction.
Effect on sky and clouds
Managing
solar radiation using aerosols or cloud cover would involve changing
the ratio between direct and indirect solar radiation. This would affect
plant life and solar energy.
Visible light, useful for photosynthesis, is reduced proportionally
more than is the infrared portion of the solar spectrum due to the
mechanism of Mie scattering.
As a result, deployment of atmospheric solar geoengineering would
reduce by at least 2-5% the growth rates of phytoplankton, trees, and
crops between now and the end of the century.
Uniformly reduced net shortwave radiation would hurt solar
photovoltaics by the same >2-5% because of the bandgap of silicon
photovoltaics.
Injecting reflective aerosols into the stratosphere is the proposed
solar geoengineering method that has received the most sustained
attention. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that
Stratospheric aerosol injection "is the most-researched SRM method, with
high agreement that it could limit warming to below 1.5°C." This technique would mimic a cooling phenomenon that occurs naturally by the eruption of volcanoes.
Sulfates are the most commonly proposed aerosol, since there is a
natural analogue with (and evidence from) volcanic eruptions.
Alternative materials such as using photophoretic particles, titanium dioxide, and diamond have been proposed. Delivery by custom aircraft appears most feasible, with artillery and balloons sometimes discussed.
The annual cost of delivering a sufficient amount of sulfur to
counteract expected greenhouse warming is estimated at $5 to 10 billion
US dollars. This technique could give much more than 3.7 W/m2 of globally averaged negative forcing, which is sufficient to entirely offset the warming caused by a doubling of carbon dioxide.
Various cloud reflectivity methods have been suggested, such as that proposed by John Latham and Stephen Salter, which works by spraying seawater in the atmosphere to increase the reflectivity of clouds.
The extra condensation nuclei created by the spray would change the
size distribution of the drops in existing clouds to make them whiter. The sprayers would use fleets of unmanned rotor ships
known as Flettner vessels to spray mist created from seawater into the
air to thicken clouds and thus reflect more radiation from the Earth. The whitening effect is created by using very small cloud condensation nuclei, which whiten the clouds due to the Twomey effect.
This technique can give more than 3.7 W/m2 of globally averaged negative forcing, which is sufficient to reverse the warming effect of a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration.
Natural cirrus clouds are believed to have a net warming effect.
These could be dispersed by the injection of various materials. This
method is strictly not solar geoengineering, as it increases outgoing longwave radiation instead of decreasing incoming shortwave radiation.
However, because it shares some of the physical and especially
governance characteristics as the other solar geoengineering methods, it
is often included.
Enhancing the natural marine sulfur cycle by fertilizing a small portion with iron—typically considered to be a greenhouse gas remediation method—may also increase the reflection of sunlight. Such fertilization, especially in the Southern Ocean, would enhance dimethyl sulfide production and consequently cloud reflectivity. This could potentially be used as regional solar geoengineering, to slow Antarctic ice from melting. Such techniques also tend to sequester carbon, but the enhancement of cloud albedo also appears to be a likely effect.
Painting roof materials in white or pale colors to reflect solar radiation, known as 'cool roof' technology, is encouraged by legislation in some areas (notably California).
This technique is limited in its ultimate effectiveness by the
constrained surface area available for treatment. This technique can
give between 0.01 and 0.19 W/m2 of globally averaged negative forcing, depending on whether cities or all settlements are so treated. This is small relative to the 3.7 W/m2
of positive forcing from a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Moreover, while in small cases it can be achieved at little or no cost
by simply selecting different materials, it can be costly if implemented
on a larger scale. A 2009 Royal Society report states that, "the
overall cost of a 'white roof method' covering an area of 1% of the land
surface (about 1012 m2) would be about $300 billion/yr, making this one of the least effective and most expensive methods considered." However, it can reduce the need for air conditioning, which emits carbon dioxide and contributes to global warming.
Radiative cooling
Some
papers have proposed the deployment of specific thermal emitters
(whether via advanced paint, or printed rolls of material) which would
simultaneously reflect sunlight and also emit energy at longwave
infrared (LWIR) lengths of 8–20 μm, which is too short to be trapped by
the greenhouse effect and would radiate into outer space. It has been
suggested that to stabilize Earth's energy budget and thus cease warming, 1–2% of the Earth's surface (area equivalent to over half of Sahara)
would need to be covered with these emitters, at the deployment cost of
$1.25 to $2.5 trillion. While low next to the estimated $20 trillion
saved by limiting the warming to 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) rather than 2 °C
(3.6 °F), it does not include any maintenance costs.
Ocean and ice changes
Oceanic foams have also been suggested, using microscopic bubbles suspended in the upper layers of the photic zone. A less costly proposal is to simply lengthen and brighten existing ship wakes.
Arctic sea ice formation could be increased by pumping deep cooler water to the surface. Sea ice (and terrestrial) ice can be thickened by increasing albedo with silica spheres. Glaciers flowing into the sea may be stabilized by blocking the flow of warm water to the glacier. Salt water could be pumped out of the ocean and snowed onto the West Antarctic ice sheet.
Vegetation
Reforestation in tropical areas has a cooling effect. Changes to grassland have been proposed to increase albedo. This technique can give 0.64 W/m2 of globally averaged negative forcing, which is insufficient to offset the 3.7 W/m2 of positive forcing from a doubling of carbon dioxide, but could make a minor contribution. Selecting or genetically modifying commercial crops with high albedo has been suggested. This has the advantage of being relatively simple to implement, with farmers simply switching from one variety to another. Temperate areas may experience a 1 °C cooling as a result of this technique. This technique is an example of bio-geoengineering. This technique can give 0.44 W/m2 of globally averaged negative forcing, which is insufficient to offset the 3.7 W/m2 of positive forcing from a doubling of carbon dioxide, but could make a minor contribution.
There has been a range of proposals to reflect or deflect solar
radiation from space, before it even reaches the atmosphere, commonly
described as a space sunshade. The most straightforward is to have mirrors orbiting around the Earth - an idea first suggested even before the wider awareness of climate change, with rocketry pioneer Hermann Oberth considering it a way to facilitate terraforming projects in 1923. and this was followed by other books in 1929, 1957 and 1978.By 1992, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences described a plan to suspend 55,000 mirrors with an individual area of 100 square meters in a Low Earth orbit. Another contemporary plan was to use space dust to replicate Rings of Saturn around the equator, although a large number of satellites
would have been necessary to prevent it from dissipating. A 2006
variation on this idea suggested relying entirely on a ring of
satellites electromagnetically tethered in the same location. In all
cases, sunlight exerts pressure which can displace these reflectors from
orbit over time, unless stabilized by enough mass. Yet, higher mass
immediately drives up launch costs.
In an attempt to deal with this problem, other researchers have proposed Inner lagrangian point
between the Earth and the Sun as an alternative to near-Earth orbits,
even though this tends to increase manufacturing or delivery costs
instead. In 1989, a paper suggested founding a lunar colony, which would produce and deploy diffraction grating made out of a hundred million tonnes of glass. In 1997, a single, very large mesh of aluminium wires "about one millionth of a millimetre thick" was also proposed.
Two other proposals from the early 2000s advocated the use of thin
metallic disks 50–60 cm in diameter, which would either be launched from
the Earth at a rate of once per minute over several decades, or be manufactured from asteroids directly in orbit. When summarizing these options in 2009, the Royal Society concluded that their deployment times are measured in decades and costs in the trillions of USD,
meaning that they are "not realistic potential contributors to
short-term, temporary measures for avoiding dangerous climate change",
and may only be competitive with the other geoengineering approaches
when viewed from a genuinely long (a century or more) perspective, as
the long lifetime of L1-based approaches could make them cheaper than
the need to continually renew atmospheric-based measures over that
timeframe.
Relatively few researchers have revisited the subject since that
Royal Society review, as it became accepted that space-based approaches
would cost about 1000 times more than their terrestrial alternatives. In 2022, the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report had discussed SAI, MCB, CCT and even attempts to alter albedo on the ground or in the ocean, yet completely ignored space-based approaches.
There are still some proponents, who argue that unlike stratospheric
aerosol injection, space-based approaches are advantageous because they
do not interfere directly with the biosphere and ecosystems.
After the IPCC report was published, three astronomers have revisited
the space dust concept, instead advocating for a lunar colony which
would continuously mine the Moon in order to eject lunar dust
into space on a trajectory where it would interfere with sunlight
streaming towards the Earth. Ejections would have to be near-continuous,
as since the dust would scatter in a matter of days, and about 10
million tons would have to be dug out and launched annually.
The authors admit that they lack a background in either climate or
rocket science, and the proposal may not be logistically feasible.
In 2021, researchers in Sweden considered building solar sails
in the near-Earth orbit, which would then arrive to L1 point over 600
days one by one. Once they all form an array in situ, the combined 1.5
billion sails would have total area of 3.75 million square kilometers,
while their combined mass is estimated in a range between 83 million
tons (present-day technology) and 34 million tons (optimal
advancements). This proposal would cost between five and ten trillion
dollars, but only once launch cost has been reduced to US$50/kg, which
represents a massive reduction from the present-day costs of
$4400-$2700/kg for the most widely used launch vehicles. In July 2022, a pair of researchers from MIT Senseable City Lab, Olivia Borgue and Andreas M. Hein, have instead proposed integrating nanotubes made out of silicon dioxide into ultra-thin polymeric films (described as "space bubbles" in the media ), whose semi-transparent nature would allow them to resist the pressure of solar wind
at L1 point better than any alternative with the same weight. The use
of these "bubbles" would limit the mass of a distributed sunshade
roughly the size of Brazil
to about 100,000 tons, much lower than the earlier proposals. However,
it would still require between 399 and 899 yearly launches of a vehicle
such as SpaceX Starship
for a period of around 10 years, even though the production of the
bubbles themselves would have to be done in space. The flights would not
begin until research into production and maintenance of these bubbles
is completed, which the authors estimate would require a minimum of
10–15 years. After that, the space shield may be large enough by 2050 to
prevent crossing of the 2 °C (3.6 °F) threshold.
Governance
Solar
geoengineering poses several governance challenges because of its high
leverage, low apparent direct costs, and technical feasibility as well
as issues of power and jurisdiction.
Solar geoengineering does require widespread engagement with community
and stakeholders, not to incur in a multitude of challenges and barriers
to the research, testing and deployment of novel technology. Because international law
is generally consensual, this creates a challenge of participation that
is the inverse of that of mitigation to reduce climate change, where
widespread participation is required. Discussions are broadly on who
will have control over the deployment of solar geoengineering and under
what governance regime the deployment can be monitored and supervised. A
governance framework for solar geoengineering must be sustainable
enough to contain a multilateral commitment over a long period of time
and yet be flexible as information is acquired, the techniques evolve,
and interests change through time.
Legal and regulatory systems may face a significant challenge in
effectively regulating solar geoengineering in a manner that allows for
an acceptable result for society. Some researchers have suggested that
building a global agreement on solar geoengineering deployment will be
very difficult, and instead power blocs are likely to emerge.
There are, however, significant incentives for states to cooperate in
choosing a specific solar geoengineering policy, which make unilateral
deployment a rather unlikely event.
[A] strategic investment in
research is needed to enhance policymakers' understanding of climate
response options. The United States should develop a transdisciplinary
research program, in collaboration with other nations, to advance
understanding of solar geoengineering's technical feasibility and
effectiveness, possible impacts on society and the environment, and
social dimensions such as public perceptions, political and economic
dynamics, and ethical and equity considerations. The program should
operate under robust research governance that includes such elements as a
research code of conduct, a public registry for research, permitting
systems for outdoor experiments, guidance on intellectual property, and
inclusive public and stakeholder engagement processes.
Public attitudes and politics
There
have been a handful of studies into attitudes to and opinions of solar
geoengineering. These generally find low levels of awareness, uneasiness
with the implementation of solar geoengineering, cautious support of
research, and a preference for greenhouse gas emissions reduction.
As is often the case with public opinions regarding emerging issues,
the responses are highly sensitive to the questions' particular wording
and context. Although most public opinion studies have polled residents
of developed countries,
those that have examined residents of developing countries—which tend
to be more vulnerable to climate change impacts—find slightly greater
levels of support there.
There are many controversies surrounding this topic and hence,
solar geoengineering has become a very political issue. No countries
have an explicit government position on solar geoengineering.
Support for solar geoengineering research comes almost entirely
from those who are concerned about climate change. Some observers claim
that political conservatives, opponents of action to reduce climate
change, and fossil fuel firms are major advocates of solar geoengineering research.
However, only a handful of conservatives and opponents of climate
action have expressed support, and there is no evidence that fossil fuel
firms are involved in solar geoengineering research.
Instead, these claims often conflate solar geoengineering and carbon
dioxide removal—where fossil fuel firms are involved—under the broader
term "geoengineering."
As noted, the interests and roles of developing countries are particularly important.
The Degrees Initiative works toward "changing the global environment in
which SRM is evaluated, ensuring informed and confident representation
from developing countries." Among other activities, it provides grants to researchers in the Global South.
In 2021, researchers at Harvard were forced to put plans for a solar geoengineering test on hold after Indigenous Sámi people objected to the test taking place in their homeland. Although the test would not have involved any immediate atmospheric experiments, members of the Saami Council spoke out against the lack of consultation and solar geoengineering more broadly. Speaking at a panel organized by the Center for International Environmental Law and other groups, Saami Council Vice President Åsa Larsson Blind said, "This goes against our worldview that we as humans should live and adapt to nature."
The right to food, and its variations, is a human right protecting the right of people to feed themselves in dignity, implying that sufficient food is available, that people have the means to access it, and that it adequately meets the individual's dietary needs. The right to food protects the right of all human beings to be free from hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition.
The right to food implies that governments only have an obligation to
hand out enough free food to starving recipients to ensure subsistence,
it does not imply a universal right to be fed. Also, if people are
deprived of access to food for reasons beyond their control, for
example, because they are in detention, in times of war or after natural
disasters, the right requires the government to provide food directly.
The right is derived from the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights which has 170 state parties as of April 2020.
States that sign the covenant agree to take steps to the maximum of
their available resources to achieve progressively the full realization
of the right to adequate food, both nationally and internationally.
In a total of 106 countries the right to food is applicable either via
constitutional arrangements of various forms or via direct applicability
in law of various international treaties in which the right to food is
protected.
At the 1996 World Food Summit,
governments reaffirmed the right to food and committed themselves to
halve the number of hungry and malnourished from 840 to 420 million by
2015. However, the number has increased over the past years, reaching an
infamous record in 2009 of more than 1 billion undernourished people
worldwide.
Furthermore, the number who suffer from hidden hunger – micronutrient
deficiences that may cause stunted bodily and intellectual growth in
children – amounts to over 2 billion people worldwide.
Whilst under international law, states are obliged to respect,
protect and fulfill the right to food, the practical difficulties in
achieving this human right are demonstrated by prevalent food insecurity
across the world, and ongoing litigation in countries such as India. In the continents with the biggest food-related problems – Africa, Asia and South America – not only is there shortage of food and lack of infrastructure but also maldistribution and inadequate access to food.
The Human Rights Measurement Initiative measures the right to food for countries around the world, based on their level of income.
Definition
The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights recognizes the "right to an adequate standard of living,
including adequate food", as well as the "fundamental right to be free
from hunger". The relationship between the two concepts is not
straightforward. For example, "freedom from hunger" (which General
Comment 12 designates as more pressing and immediate) could be measured by the number of people suffering from malnutrition and at the extreme, dying of starvation. The "right to adequate food" is a much higher standard, including not only absence of malnutrition, but to the full range of qualities associated with food, including safety, variety and dignity, in short all those elements needed to enable an active and healthy life.
The right to have regular, permanent and unrestricted
access, either directly or by means of financial purchases, to
quantitatively and qualitatively adequate and sufficient food
corresponding to the cultural traditions of the people to which the
consumer belongs, and which ensure a physical and mental, individual and
collective, fulfilling and dignified life free of fear.
This definition entails all normative elements explained in detail in the General Comment 12 of the ICESCR, which states:
the right to adequate food is realized when every man,
woman and child, alone or in community with others, have the physical
and economic access at all times to adequate food or means for its
procurement.
Dimensions
The former Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Jean Ziegler, defined three dimensions to the right to food.
Availability
refers to the possibilities either for feeding oneself directly from
productive land or other natural resources, or for well functioning
distribution, processing and market systems that can move food from the
site of production to where it is needed in accordance with demand.
Accessibility
implies that economic and physical access to food is to be guaranteed.
On the one hand, economic access means that food should be affordable
for an adequate diet without compromising other basic needs. On the
other hand, physically vulnerable, such as sick, children, disabled or
elderly should also have access to food.
Adequacy implies that the food must satisfy the dietary
needs of every individual, taking into account age, living conditions,
health, occupation, sex, culture and religion, for example. The food
must be safe and adequate protective measures by both public and private
means must be taken to prevent contamination of foodstuffs through
adulteration and/or through bad environmental hygiene or inappropriate
handling at different stages throughout the food chain; care must also
be taken to identify and avoid or destroy naturally occurring toxins.
Furthermore, any discrimination in access to food, as well as to
means and entitlements for its procurement, on the grounds of race,
colour, sex, language, age, religion, political or other opinion,
national or social origin, property, birth or other status constitutes a
violation of the right to food.
There is a traditional distinction between two types of human rights.
On the one hand, negative or abstract rights that are respected by
non-intervention. On the other hand, positive or concrete rights that
require resources for its realisation. However, it is nowadays contested
whether it is possible to clearly distinguish between these two types
of rights.
The right to food can accordingly be divided into the negative
right to obtain food by one's own actions, and the positive right to be
supplied with food if one is unable to access it. The negative right to
food was recognised as early as in England's 1215 Magna Carta which reads that: "no one shall be 'amerced' (fined) to the extent that they are deprived of their means of living."
International developments from 1941 onwards
This
section provides an overview of international developments relevant to
the establishment and implementation of the right to food from the
mid-20th century onwards.
"Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate
for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including
food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services,
and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness,
disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in
circumstances beyond his control" (Article 25).
1966 – The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,
reiterates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with regard to the
right to an adequate standard of living and, in addition, specifically
recognises the right to be free from hunger. The covenant, states
parties recognise:
"the right of everyone to an adequate
standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food"
(Article 11.1) and "the fundamental right of everyone to be free from
hunger." (Article 11.2).
1999 – The Committee adopts General Comment No. 12 'The Right to
Adequate Food', describing the various State obligations derived from
the Covenant regarding the right to food.
2004 – The FAO adopts the Right to Food Guidelines,
offering guidance to States on how to implement their obligations on
the right to food. The drafting of the guidelines was initiated as a
result of the 2002 World Food Summit.
Amartya Sen won his 1998 Nobel Prize
in part for his work in demonstrating that famine and mass starvation
in modern times was not typically the product of a lack of food; rather,
it usually arose from problems in food distribution networks or from
government policies.
Legal status
The right to food is protected under international human rights and humanitarian law. Within the U.N.'s human rights system, it has been presented consistently as a basic human right.
There are also such instruments in many national constitutions.
Non-legally binding instruments
There
are several non-legally binding international human rights instruments
relevant to the right to food. They include recommendations, guidelines,
resolutions or declarations. The most detailed is the 2004 Right to Food Guidelines. They are a practical tool to help implement the right to adequate food.[5]
The Right to Food Guidelines are not legally binding but draw upon
international law and are a set of recommendations States have chosen on
how to implement their obligations under Article 11 of the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Finally, the preamble to the 1945 Constitution of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization provides that:
the Nations accepting this Constitution, being determined to promote
the common welfare by furthering separate and collective action on their
part for the purpose of: raising levels of nutrition and standards of
living ... and thus ... ensuring humanity's freedom from hunger....
In 1998, a Conference on Consensus Strategy on the Right To Food
was held in Santa Barbara, California, US with anti-hunger experts from
five continents.
In 2010, a group of national and international organisations created a proposal to replace the European Union Common Agricultural Policy,
which was due for change in 2013. The first article of The New Common
Food and Agriculture Policy "considers food as a universal human right,
not merely a commodity."
State obligations
State obligations related to the right to food are well-established under international law. By signing the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)
states agreed to take steps to the maximum of their available resources
to achieve progressively the full realization of the right to adequate
food. They also acknowledge the essential role of international
cooperation and assistance in this context. This obligation was reaffirmed by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR). Signatories to the Right to Food Guidelines also committed to implementing the right to food at a national level.
In General Comment no. 12, the CESCR interpreted the states' obligation as being of three types: the obligation to respect, protect and to fulfil:
Respect implies that states must never arbitrarily prevent people from having access to food.
Protect means that states should take measures to ensure that
enterprises or individuals do not deprive individuals of their access
to adequate food.
Fulfil (facilitate and provide) entails that governments must
pro-actively engage in activities intended to strengthen people's
access to and utilization of resources and means to ensure their
livelihood, including food security. If, for reasons beyond their
control such as at times of war or after a natural disaster, groups or
individuals are unable to enjoy their right to food, then states have
the obligation to provide that right directly.
The ICESCR recognises that the right to freedom from hunger requires international cooperation, and relates to matters of production, the agriculture and global supply. Article 11 states that:
The States Parties to the present Covenant... shall take,
individually and through international co-operation, the measures,
including specific programmes, which are needed:
(a) To improve methods of production, conservation and distribution of
food by making full use of technical and scientific knowledge, by
disseminating knowledge of the principles of nutrition and by developing
or reforming agrarian systems
in such a way as to achieve the most efficient development and
utilization of natural resources;
(b) Taking into account the problems of both food-importing and
food-exporting countries, to ensure an equitable distribution of world
food supplies in relation to need.
The implementation of the right to food standards at national level
has consequences for national constitutions, laws, courts, institutions,
policies and programmes, and for various food security topics, such as
fishing, land, focus on vulnerable groups, and access to resources.
National strategies on the progressive realization of the right to food should fulfill four functions:
define the obligations corresponding to the right to adequate
food, whether these are the obligations of government or those of
private actors;
improve the coordination between the different branches of
government whose activities and programs may affect the realization of
the right to food;
set targets, ideally associated with measurable indicators, defining
the timeframe within which particular objectives should be achieved;
provide for a mechanism ensuring that the effect of new legislative initiatives or policies on the right.
International
The right to food imposes on all States obligations not only towards
the persons living on their national territory, but also towards the
populations of other States. The right to food is only realised when
both national and international obligations are complied with. On the
one hand, is the effect of the international environment and, in
particular, climate change, malnutrition and food insecurity. On the
other hand, the international community can only contribute if legal
frameworks and institutions are established at the national level.
Non-discrimination
Under article 2(2) of the ICESCR,
governments agreed that the right to food will be exercised without
discrimination on grounds of sex, colour, race, age, language, religion,
political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth
or other status. The CESCR
stresses the special attention that should be given to disadvantaged
and marginalized farmers, including women farmers, in a rural context.
A framework law is a "legislative technique used to address cross-sectoral issues."
Framework laws are more specific than a constitutional provision, as it
lays down general obligations and principles. However, competent
authorities and further legislation which still have to determine
specific measures should be taken.
The adoption of framework laws was recommended by the Committee on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights as a "major instrument in the
implementation of the national strategy concerning the right to food".
There are ten countries that have adopted and nine countries that are
developing framework laws on food security or the right to food. This
development is likely to increase in the coming years. Often they are known as food security laws instead of right to food laws, but their effect is usually similar.
Advantages of framework law includes that the content and scope
of the right can be further specified, state and private actor
obligations can be spelled out in detail, appropriate institutional
mechanisms can be established, and rights to remedies can be provided
for. Further advantages of framework laws include: strengthening
government accountability, monitoring, helping government officials
understand their role, improving access to courts and by providing
administrative recourse mechanisms.
However, provisions for obligations and remedies in existing
framework law is not always very thorough, and it is neither always
clear what they add to the justiciability of the right to food.
As of 2011, the following ten countries have adopted a framework
law on food security or the right to food: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil,
Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Indonesia, Nicaragua, Peru and
Venezuela.
Moreover, in 2011 the following nine countries were drafting a
framework law on food security or the right to food: Honduras, India,
Malawi, Mexico, Mozambique, Paraguay, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda. Finally, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Peru are drafting to update, replace or strengthen their framework law.
Constitutional
There are various ways in which constitutions can take the right to food or some aspect of it into account. As of 2011, 56 constitutions protect the right to food in some form or another.
The three main categories of constitutional recognition are: as an
explicit right, as implied in broader human rights or as part of a
directive principle. In addition to those, the right can also indirectly
be recognised when other human rights are interpreted by a judiciary.
Explicit as a right
Firstly,
the right to food is explicitly and directly recognised as a right in
itself or as part of a broader human right in 23 countries. Three different forms can be distinguished.
1. The following nine countries recognise the right to food as a
separate and stand-alone right: Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Guyana, Haiti,
Kenya, South Africa, in the Interim Constitution of Nepal (as food sovereignty) and Nicaragua (as freedom from hunger).
2. For a specific segment of the population the right to food is
recognised in ten countries. Provisions regarding the right to food of
children are present in the constitutions of: Brazil, Colombia, Cuba,
Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, and South Africa. The
right to food of indigenous children is protected in the constitution of
Costa Rica. Finally, the right to food of detainees and prisoners is
additionally recognised in the constitution of South Africa.
3. Five countries recognize the right to food explicitly as part
of a human right to an adequate standard of living, quality of life, or
development: Belarus, the Congo, Malawi, Moldova and Ukraine, and two
recognise it as part of the right to work: Brazil and Suriname. The XX. article of the Fundamental Law of Hungary recognizes the right to food as a part of a human right to health.
Implicit or as directive principle
Secondly, the following 31 countries implicitly recognise the right to food in broader human rights:
Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bolivia, Burundi, Cambodia, Czech Rep.,
Congo, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Ecuador, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea,
Eritrea, Ethiopia, Finland, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Guatemala, Guinea,
Kyrgyzstan, Malawi, Netherlands, Pakistan, Peru, Romania, Switzerland,
Thailand, Turkey, Venezuela.
Thirdly, the following thirteen countries explicitly recognise
the right to food within the constitution as a directive principle or
goal:
Bangladesh, Brazil, Ethiopia, India, Iran, Malawi, Nigeria, Panama,
Papua New Guinea, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Uganda.
Applicable via international law
In some countries international treaties have a higher status than or
equal status to national legislation. Consequently, the right to food
may be directly applicable via international treaties if such country is
member to a treaty in which the right is recognised. Such treaties
include the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child
(CRC). Excluding countries in which the right to food is implicitly or
explicitly recognised in their constitution, the right is directly
applicable in at least 51 additional countries via international
treaties.
Commitment via ICESCR
ICESCR
Parties to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
have to do everything to guarantee adequate nutrition, including
legislating to that effect. The Covenant has become part of national
legislation in over 77 countries. In these countries the provision for
the right to food in the Covenant can be cited in a court. This has
happened in Argentina (in the case of the right to health).
However, citizens usually cannot prosecute using the Covenant, but
can only do so under national law. If a country does not pass such laws a
citizen has no redress, even though the state violated the covenant.
The implementation of the Covenant is monitored through the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
In total, 160 countries have ratified the Covenant. A further 32
countries have not ratified the covenant, although 7 of them did sign
it.
Optional protocol
By signing the Optional Protocol to the ICESCR, states recognise the competence of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights to receive and consider complaints from individuals or groups who claim their rights under the Covenant have been violated. However, complainants must have exhausted all domestic remedies. The committee can "examine", works towards "friendly settlement",
in the case of grave or systematic violations of the Covenant, it can
"invite that State Party to cooperate" and, finally, could "include a
summary account of the results of the proceedings in its annual report".
The following seven countries have ratified the Optional Protocol to
the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights:
Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ecuador, El Salvador, Mongolia,
Slovakia, and Spain. A further 32 countries have signed the optional
protocol.
Mechanisms to achieve the right to food
The
Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Mr. De Schutter, urged the
establishment in law of the right to food, so that it can be translated
into national strategies and institutions. Furthermore, he recommended emerging economies to protect the rights of land users, in particular of minority and vulnerable groups. He also advised to support smallholder
agriculture in the face of mega-development projects, and to stop soil
and water degradation through massive shifts to agroecological
practices. Finally, the UN expert suggested adopting a strategy to
tackle rising obesity.
The United Nations' Article 11 on the Right to Adequate Food suggests several implementation mechanisms.
The Article acknowledges that the most appropriate ways and means of
implementing the right to adequate food will inevitably vary
significantly from one State to another. Every State must choose its own
approaches, but the Covenant clearly requires that each State party
take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that everyone is free from
hunger and as soon as possible can enjoy the right to adequate food.
The Article emphasizes that the right to food requires full
compliance with the principles of accountability, transparency, people's
participation, decentralization, legislative capacity and the
independence of the judiciary. In terms of strategy to implement the
right to food, the Article asks that the States should identify and
address critical issues in regard to all aspects of the food system,
including the food production and processing, food storage, retail
distribution, marketing and its consumption. The implementation strategy
should give particular attention to the need to prevent discrimination
in access to food shops and retail network, or alternatively to
resources for growing food. As part of their obligations to protect
people's resource base for food, States should take appropriate steps to
ensure that activities of the private business sector and civil society
are in conformity with the right to food.
The Article notes that whenever a State faces severe resource
constraints, whether caused by a process of economic adjustment,
economic recession, climatic conditions or other factors, measures
should be undertaken to ensure that the right to adequate food is
especially fulfilled for vulnerable population groups and individuals.
For example, according to the Committee overseeing the implementation of the ICESCR, "the right to water
is a prerequisite for the realization of other human rights." The need
to have adequate water in order to have adequate food is in particular
evident in the case of peasant farmers. Access to sustainable water
resources for agriculture needs to be ensured to realise the right to
food. This applies even more strongly to subsistence agriculture.