Mudanças climáticas na região sul do Rio Grande do Sul: repercussões no direito humano à alimentação adequada

Abstract

This research analyzes the consequences of climate change in the southern region of Rio Grande do Sul and its impacts on the human right to adequate food access. The specific objectives of the research are, first, contextualizing and understanding the phenomenon of climate change, examining its interface with human rights, studying the existing normative provisions to protect the phenomenon on a global, regional and national scale, and verifying the incidence of climate disputes as instruments for complying with legal norms and public policies. Second, analyzing the human right to adequate food access, starting from the analysis of its historical construction to the current conception, exploring the Brazilian context regarding the effectiveness of the aforementioned human right, which may have been aggravated by climate changes, as well as presenting the intersections between the phenomenon of climate change and the human right to adequate food. Third, analyzing the effects of climate change in the Southern Region of Rio Grande do Sul, through the analysis of the accumulated rainfall and average temperature in the period from 2011 to 2020, and comparing these data with the average yield and cultivated area of rice, soy, wheat, corn and bean crops, food that make up the regional grocery-basic-needs and, as a result, making the human right to adequate food access a reality. The present research finds its justification in the importance and urgency of current climate changes, either because of its immediacy or because of its effects, in the case of this study, on the human right to food. The research method used is the hypothetico-deductive model. The falsification test was carried out through the correlation of real empirical data, extracted from the National Institute of Meteorology and the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation, on the rainfall index and the average temperature in relation to the cultivated area and the average yield of agricultural production rice, wheat, corn, beans and soybeans. In the end, it was concluded that the tendency of increasing average temperature and decreasing accumulated rainfall in the region caused a drop in the average yield of rice, soybean, corn and bean production. As for wheat, it was the only crop that showed an increase in yield. Thus, it was possible to corroborate the initial hypothesis that climate changes in the Southern Region of RS affect the availability of rice, soy, corn and bean crops, which make up the grocery-basic-needs of the State. Furthermore, it was found that they lead to a decrease in access to such crops. For these reasons, the falsification test corroborated the hypothesis that climate changes in the region impact the human right to adequate food access.