Cars move slowly through a flooded roadway on June 7, 2019 in Bangkok, Thailand.
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An report submitted to the United Nations this week warns that human rights — along with many of our planet’s poorest residents — may not survive the ongoing climate crisis.
Philip Alston, UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, said in an advance version of the report that the impacts of climate change imminently threaten basic human rights and survival, as well as law, order, and democracy itself.
“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,” he wrote. According to Alston, the world’s poorest populations will continue to lose access to water and food as migrant populations swell, among other major effects, while developing countries will bear 75% of the costs of climate crisis despite causing a small fraction of carbon emissions.
Discrepancies in the resources afforded to higher- and lower-income groups during extreme weather events and more permanent changes will also have wide-ranging impacts throughout society, he said.
“The risk of community discontent, of growing inequality, and of even greater levels of deprivation among some groups, will likely stimulate nationalist, xenophobic, racist and other responses. Maintaining a balanced approach to civil and political rights will be extremely complex.”
For an example of the current imparity in disaster-related resources, Alston pointed to the US’ finance capital: “When Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc on New York in 2012, stranding low-income and vulnerable New Yorkers without access to power and healthcare, the Goldman Sachs headquarters was protected by tens of thousands of its own sandbags and power from its generator,” he wrote.
Alston will formally deliver his research-based report to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Friday.
Indian passengers rest near pallets of water bottles at Allahabad Railway station during a heat wave on June 11, 2019 .
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Regarding nations’ response to the crisis of global heating, Alston commented in a statement,
“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. A reckoning with the scale of the change that is needed is just the first step.”
In preparation for the report, Alston recently made a tour of the US, where he witnessed disturbing scenarios around the country but also some promising ones.
Among other things, Alston noted in an official statement on his visit, “Americans can expect to live shorter and sicker lives, compared to people living in any other rich democracy, and the ‘health gap’ between the U.S. and its peer countries continues to grow.”
(h/t The Guardian)