Overcoming Resistance to Climate Action in the Global North: The Potential of Using Human Rights as a New Paradigm for Climate Communication

Ana García Juanatey; Bettina Steible; Ilaria De Vita

doi:10.17561/tahrj.v22.7967

Authors

Ana García Juanatey CEI International Affairs, adjunt center to the Universitat de Barcelona
Bettina Steible Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
Ilaria De Vita Independent researcher

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17561/tahrj.v22.7967

Keywords:

Climate emergency, Human Rights, Climate Justice, Climate Communication

Abstract

This paper aims to explore the role that human rights can play not only as legal instruments to achieve climate justice, but also as practical tools to improve communication of the climate emergency. We do this by explaining how different narratives, values and emotions affect the public’s perception of this vital issue. Finally, we propose effective strategies to improve climate communication according to human rights principles and values.

Author Biographies

Ana García Juanatey, CEI International Affairs, adjunt center to the Universitat de Barcelona

Dr. Ana G. Juanatey holds a PhD in International Law by the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (2016, UPF). She is currently working as a full-time professor at the CEI International Affairs, center affiliated to the Universitat de Barcelona (UB), and as a part-time professor at the UPF. She is also the executive coordinator of the Master in Sustainable Development of the UB. Her main lines of research focus on the analysis of comparative public policies, in sectors that range from economic and social regulation to human rights. At present, she is particularly interested the design of public policies that reflect the interrelation between social rights and sustainable development, such as a just transition in the field of climate action. She has published her work in several international journals, such as South European Society and Politics, Administration and Society, the Journal of Sustainable Development Law and Policy and the European Journal of Higher Education, among others. She is also part of several research groups, such as the People-Environment Research Group, the Research Group in International Studies (GREI) and GlobalReg and she has been a visiting researcher at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO, 2015).
Bettina Steible, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya

Bettina Steible is assistant professor (professora lectora) of public law at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya since 2020. She also counts with teaching experience at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona – UAB, the Universitat Pompeu Fabra - UPF, the CEI international Affairs, the University of Szczecin, and the University of Montpellier I. She holds a PhD in law from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, for which she received the 2018 Jaime Brunet Prize for the best doctoral thesis on the promotion of human rights. Her main research interests revolve mainly around two main axes: European human rights law and European Constitutional Law.

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