Guest essay by Eric Worrall
“Sombre speeches by government officials at regular conferences are not leading to meaningful action.”
UN expert condemns failure to address impact of climate change on poverty
GENEVA (25 June 2019) – Climate change will have the greatest impact on those living in poverty, but also threatens democracy and human rights, according to a UN expert.“Even if current targets are met, tens of millions will be impoverished, leading to widespread displacement and hunger,” said the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, in a report released today.
“Climate change threatens to undo the last 50 years of progress in development, global health, and poverty reduction,” Alston said. “It could push more than 120 million more people into poverty by 2030 and will have the most severe impact in poor countries, regions, and the places poor people live and work.”
Even the unrealistic best-case scenario of 1.5°C of warming by 2100 will see extreme temperatures in many regions and leave disadvantaged populations with food insecurity, lost incomes, and worse health. Many will have to choose between starvation and migration.
“Perversely, while people in poverty are responsible for just a fraction of global emissions, they will bear the brunt of climate change, and have the least capacity to protect themselves,” Alston said. “We risk a ‘climate apartheid’ scenario where the wealthy pay to escape overheating, hunger, and conflict while the rest of the world is left to suffer.”
Climate change has immense, but largely neglected, implications for human rights. The rights to life, food, housing, and water will be dramatically affected. But equally importantly will be the impact on democracy, as governments struggle to cope with the consequences and to persuade their people to accept the major social and economic transformations required. “In such a setting, civil and political rights will be highly vulnerable,” the Special Rapporteur said.
“Most human rights bodies have barely begun to grapple with what climate change portends for human rights, and it remains one on a long laundry list of ‘issues’, despite the extraordinarily short time to avoid catastrophic consequences,” Alston said. “As a full-blown crisis that threatens the human rights of vast numbers of people bears down, the usual piecemeal, issue-by-issue human rights methodology is woefully insufficient.”
Sombre speeches by government officials at regular conferences are not leading to meaningful action. “States have marched past every scientific warning and threshold, and what was once considered catastrophic warming now seems like a best-case scenario,” Alston said. “Even today, too many countries are taking short-sighted steps in the wrong direction.”
States are failing to meet even their current inadequate commitments to reduce carbon emissions and provide climate financing, while continuing to subsidise the fossil fuel industry with $5.2 trillion per year.
“Maintaining the current course is a recipe for economic catastrophe,” Alston said. “Economic prosperity and environmental sustainability are fully compatible but require decoupling economic well-being and poverty reduction from fossil fuel emissions.”
This transition will require robust policies at the local level to support displaced workers and ensure quality jobs. “A robust social safety net will be the best response to the unavoidable harms that climate change will bring,” Alston said. “This crisis should be a catalyst for states to fulfil long ignored and overlooked economic and social rights, including to social security and access to food, healthcare, shelter, and decent work.”
Although some have turned to the private sector for solutions, an overreliance on for-profit efforts would nearly guarantee massive human rights violations, with the wealthy catered to and the poorest left behind. “If climate change is used to justify business-friendly policies and widespread privatisation, exploitation of natural resources and global warming may be accelerated rather than prevented,” Alston said.
“There is no shortage of alarm bells ringing over climate change, and an increase in biblical-level extreme weather events appear to be finally piercing through the noise, misinformation, and complacency, but these positive signs are no reason for contentment,” Alston said. “A reckoning with the scale of the change that is needed is just the first step.”
ENDSMr. Philip Alston (Australia) took up his functions as the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights in June 2014. As a Special Rapporteur, he is part of what is known as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights system, is the general name of the Council’s independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms that address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world. Special Procedures’ experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. They are independent from any government or organization and serve in their individual capacity.
Follow the Special Rapporteur on Twitter @Alston_UNSR and Facebook at www.facebook.com/AlstonUNSR
For more information and media requests, please contact Bassam Khawaja (+1 646 886 7211 / bassam.khawaja@nyu.edu) or Patricia Varela (+41 22 928 9234 / pvarela@ohchr.org)
For media inquiries related to other UN independent experts please contact Jeremy Laurence, UN Human Rights – Media Unit (+41 22 917 9383 / jlaurence@ohchr.org
Follow news related to the UN’s independent human rights experts on Twitter @UN_SPExperts
Source: UN OHCHR Website
The section on climate finance is entertaining;
Hundreds of billions of dollars or more will need to be mobilized to avert human suffering and losses in the trillions. The commitment by developed countries to mobilize $100 billion a year by 2020 is “only a fraction of the finance needed to keep the average temperature increase to 2 °C.” It is also insufficient for adaptation needs—which in developing countries are expected to total between $140 and 300 billion annually by 2025/30, and between $280 and $500 billion a year by 2050. According to one analysis of existing figures, estimated assistance is lower than reported, grant-based assistance lags far behind loans, and only a small fraction goes to least developed countries.
Source: Same link as above, p14-15
Everyone chip in, we’ve only got to raise $100 billion for this year’s payment…
“States have marched past every scientific warning and threshold, and what was once considered catastrophic warming now seems like a best-case scenario…”
They’re really cranking up the hyperbole. If catastrophic is best case, what’s worse case?
Super-exponential anthropomorphic catastrophic.
Be afraid; be very afraid.
[Oh, and by the way, Send more money because too many are dying by inhaling smoke from their fires inside closed dwellings due to lack of affordable energy.]
The world tipping over and Guam staying put
The biggest threat to democracy, freedom, prosperity and human rights today is not Climate Change. It is Climate Change Fraud.
“””The biggest threat to democracy, freedom, ……. etc “”” is United Nations.
Fixed.
The enormity of the grasping greed is UNbelievable!…
One hundred billion a year. Each year going forward.
This has been called “a very small figure”by Christiana Figueres.
I thought the Special Report on 1.5C last October was nominating $122 trillion being needed from private and public sources by centuries end.
It is difficult to keep a straight face when figures in the trillions are being loosely bandied about.
A trillion dollars here and a trillion dollars there and pretty soon you’re talking real money.(h/t Everett Dirksen).
Perhaps the UN should contact GoFundMe.
What’s the next value above a trillion? Or do we just through our hands up and give up at that point?
If we mine the “gold asteroid”, it has quadrillions in gold, platinum, and other metals. Problem solved! /s
No problem peoples.
The UK is riding to the aid of the climate destitute as the utterly insane Theresa May has pledged to impoverish our country to save the planet.
I mean, the UK produces as much as 1% or so of global emissions so persuading mother nature by giving her £1Tn is bound to have an impact on all those destitute African and Chinese peasants.
Easy when you have OP’s money to spend.
A great speech, but he failed to mention how $100 Billion was going to safe them.
What is his plan for this money, and how will it achieve this objective?
“..Climate change will have the greatest impact on those living in poverty, but also threatens democracy and human rights, according to a UN expert…”
The climate scare is a quest or pretext for political power, money and control. Because it involves the usurpation of political power (or more of it) over the people of the world in pursuit of an end, I submit that it is the climate scare narrative itself that is a threat to human rights. Power corrupts and oppresses. The more govts invoke an excuse for additional political power, the greater their opportunities for oppression. The risk is being created to subordinate human rights and freedom to a climate scare doctrine of highly questionable scientific credibility.
Furthermore, the climate scare narrative condemns the poor to eternal poverty in that it precludes allowing for economic development which would enable the poor to be lifted up and out of poverty. They are thus also subordinating human prosperity to climate scare doctrine.
Seeing the U.N. bureaucratic bozos get things bass ackwards is disgusting. I may have to skip dinner tonight.
So this guy tells us the required change will be very costly and demand much sacrifice to save the poor. AOC tells us not to sweat the cost because we will all have good jobs and make more money. I think they both think they are right but have not stopped to actually think about the processes they are demanding or the problem they claim to be solving. Their messages, although opposite and mutually exclusive, are intended to motivate by using feelings instead of facts which they both find in very short supply.
The world is ending . . .
. . . send money.
UN Special Provocateur Alston has basically listed much of the blight that will befall us all under a global gov centred in Europe. Please Mr President, defund this undisguised, anti American, anti free enterprise, anti freedom Trojan Horse.
These UN leeches can’t believe America takes this abuse. Privately they must laugh at the inside joke that America is funding its own dismantling. They have everybody else (except a few Eastern European countries in the bag whose arms are easy to twist) and their entire job is to take down America. Com’on you must get it.
“only a fraction of the finance needed to keep the average temperature increase to 2 °C.”
Which failed model are they basing this 2 degrees C of warming on? And what failed economic model are they basing rising poverty levels on?
Global poverty is in rapid decline because of carbon based energy. So is population growth. Moar please!
From the article: “There is no shortage of alarm bells ringing over climate change,”
Isn’t that the truth!
And not a one of those alarms has every panned out. One false alarm after another about humans tampering with the Earth’s weather and climate.
As the planet Earth cools, one wonders what planet these alarmists are living on, when they keep predicting catastrophic warming. They look more and more divorced from reality as time goes along. I wonder if they realize this?
If the UN is concerned about bringing poor people out of poverty they ought to build those people some fossil fuel or nuclear power plants instead of trying to foist windmills off on them.
Affordable energy is what brings people out of poverty. Windmills and solar cannot meet this need, because they are much too expensive to be practical.
Fighting climate change will have the greatest impact on those living in poverty, but also threatens democracy and human rights, leaving tens of millions impoverished, leading to widespread displacement and hunger. Fighting climate change is already undoing the last 50 years of progress.
Fixed it for ya.
China Emits More Carbon Dioxide Than The U.S. and EU Combined
In the Paris Accord, the UN gave China the right to INCREASE its CO2 emissions into 2030s. All CO2 taxes / donations are irrelevant in face of developing country growth that will continue until they reach a high standard of living like the EU and US.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2018/07/01/china-emits-more-carbon-dioxide-than-the-u-s-and-eu-combined/#ed1fa4628c2b
From it’s birth at the hands of Maurice Strong, CAGW has been designed as a means to get money into UN hands. Perhaps it’s a sign of desperation that they’re being so obvious about it.
71 Million were displaced by wars last year alone and the UN is worrying about tens of millions of displacements by 2030. Nice priority organization by the UN … oh wait I wonder which will give the UN more money to play with.
A bit off topic….
I am watching the Democrat primary candidate debate on TV… and switching back and forth with an old Stargate SG-1 episode, when the ‘debate’ becomes too surrealistic.
And it just hit me:
I’m not sure which ‘show’ is further from reality!
Still the case is presented by the UN and the IPCC based on projections that 1.5C of warming could be catastrophic under some scenarios. But the fact is that the world has already warmed by 1.0C since pre-industrial times. so all the kerfuffle is about the disaster that a mere 0.5C of further warming might cause. But 0.5C doesn’t sound as scary as 1.5C. When will this madness stop?
So, we’re 1C into this 1.5C catastrophe? Wow, no wonder I see so many mutant frogs, fish swimming backward, cyclones and tornadoes dancing down the main street, sea levels rising 1 foot per week (Thanks Al), the sky turning blue, and nobody noticing that it’s all going to Heck!
The more rabid the Warmistas and associated politicos become, the more we notice them frothing at the mouth.
“Climate change threatens to undo the last 50 years of progress in development, global health, and poverty reduction. . . ”
Just what role does this doofus think that fossil fuel consumption might have had in the “50 years of progress in development, global health, and poverty reduction?”
Our cry on deaf ears makes no difference.
Spot on!
The commitment by developed countries to mobilize $100 billion a year by 2020 is “only a fraction of the finance needed to keep the average temperature increase to 2 °C.”
“ONLY A FRACTION” of what is needed- oh, that’s rich.
My only concern is what if they give up the insane raving…
$100 Billion per Year certainly would help. Send it to me. I promise it will be put to good use.
I’ve heard that comment before, that States subsidise fossil fuel industry by trillions of dollars. But I don’t get where this figure comes from. Are these people actually claiming that governments pay money to private oil companies to pump oil and gas out of the ground? Anybody got any answers to this?
“I’ve heard that comment before, that States subsidise fossil fuel industry by trillions of dollars. But I don’t get where this figure comes from. Are these people actually claiming that governments pay money to private oil companies to pump oil and gas out of the ground?”
The oil companies get tax breaks, not payments from government. Alarmists imply that the government pays the oil companies, but what really happens is the oil companies get to keep a little bit more of the profits they make by using the tax breaks. The money is generated by the oil compaines and they pay some in taxes and get to keep some because of tax breaks.
The taxpayer, at least in America, does not subsidize the oil companies with direct cash payments.
OTOH, governments and taxpayers DO pay direct subsidies to windmill and solar farms. Paying the subsidies to the windmill and solar farms is the only way they are economically viable. Without direct government payments to windmill and solar industries these industries would collapse. The sooner the better, as far as I’m concerned.
Maybe we should ask all the international organisations that are concerned about the world’s poor to relocate their plush offices in places like New York, Paris, London Geneva Rome and so on, and set up their well funded activities in the poor countries they focus on. Those countries would directly benefit from the economic input that move would provide.
Let us relocate the UN to say Liberia, a natural home for such an organisation. Maybe the World Bank to Zimbabwe where money with plenty of zero’s (was) normal. I am sure this progressive idea will win favour with the socialist leaders of the various institutions. Maybe FIFA can transfer its HQ to one of the hot poor middle eastern countries, where football world cups could be played every year instead of the four year as now. We all know how valuable world cup venue selection is, and the ME seems to be an ideal location…
Pass me the step ladder… 🙂
“Climate Apartheid” is a ridiculous phrase, and this alone discredits anything else associated with it.
When did climate have anything to do with racial segregation. My question to the users of this phrase — Distort definitions much?
Here, allow me to introduce some more ridiculous phrases:
Climate atheism
Climate constipation
Climate prostitution
Climate deficiency
Climate rape
Climate indigestion
Climate anemia
Climate terrorism
Feel free to add your own.
You left out Climate Reparations which is what the Paris Agreement started already.