By JR on Sunday, June 30, 2019
UN report on global warming warns of "climate apartheid" between rich and poor
This is all perfectly logical if we assume that a couple of degrees warming is going to affect anything much. But will it? The population outside the tropics are not be going to be bothered by a couple of degrees warming.
People in the tropics already live in temperatures way above the global average so why should people in more temperate climes experience difficulty with a slightly warmer environment?
The very hottest territories may experience out-movement but that is a problem for their neighbors only. There is no reason to expect any significant global effect
The UN has published a new report detailing the dangers of climate change, with a particular focus on how it will shape the issue of poverty in the coming decades. It paints a grim picture for not just those suffering in the current day, but the millions upon millions that will be pushed into poverty as a result of a changing climate, which also has the potential to upend democracy and human rights.
The new report echoes the sentiments of past climate reports published by the UN, calling on governments to do more than the steps laid out in the Paris Agreement in order to limit warming to levels considered safe. These have highlighted the issues of climate refugees, diminishing natural resources and extreme weather events, but the latest puts the spotlight on inequality between rich and poor, and how global warming threatens to widen the divide.
"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 and report author Philip Alston. "Climate change threatens to undo the last 50 years of progress in development, global health, and poverty reduction. 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."
The report leans on figures from the World Bank and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change among others, and in part imagines a world a few decades down the track with 2° C (3.6° F) of warming above pre-industrial levels. It says this could see 100 to 400 million more people at risk of hunger and 1 to 2 billion without access to adequate water. Crop yields could drop by 30 percent by 2080, while malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea, and heat stress could cause an additional 250,000 deaths per year by 2030.
It also points out the discrepancies in carbon emissions coming from the poor, who will suffer the most, and the wealthy, who will suffer less. The 3.5 billion people making up the poorer half of the world's population are responsible for only 10 percent of these emissions, while the wealthiest 10 percent contribute half. Strikingly, a person in the richest one percent is responsible for 175 times more carbon emissions than somebody in the bottom 10 percent.
"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."
Equally important as the issues of food security, housing and water, the report says, is the threat to democracy and the rule of law. It says the anticipated mass migrations of people forced to either starve or move will "pose immense and unprecedented challenges to governance" and likely stimulate "nationalist, xenophobic, racist and other responses."
"In such a setting, civil and political rights will be highly vulnerable," Alston 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. 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."
UN report on global warming warns of "climate apar...
How Dengue Could Spread in a Warming World This w...
IN MEMORIAM: HERB LONDON I have just heard that H...
It isn't Leavers who are authoritarian Dubious su...
Syrup Is as Canadian as a Maple Leaf. That Could C...
Do sweet drinks give you heart attacks? I haven't...
Skeptical Australian Radio commentator slammed ove...
NYT writes: U.S. Escalates Online Attacks on Russi...
Universities shine in the contest of ideas (?) Be...
The opening speech in Florida I am not going to r...
Inside a far-Left organization Amnesty Internatio...
A grievous sinner, and a great American Jeff Jaco...
'Frightening' number of plant extinctions found in...
'It's absurd': Childcare is costing parents more t...
Will global warming endanger the U.S. corn belt, a...
What Trump's new ethanol rules mean for you Trump...
More than 500 species of plants have disappeared i...
Depressed billionaires are good news Martin Hutch...
YouTube vs free speech Pro-homosexual voices have...
Brisbane ban on 'cookie-cutter' townhouses could b...
The song sucks': An Indigenous rapper insults the ...
'Thirty years from complete catastrophe': Admiral ...
Stupid critics slam a mother over her eye prefere...
India weather: Temperature passes 50C Celsius in n...
Save your money on private school – DNA will dec...
Living on the dole Yesterday, in response to call...
How climate change can fuel wars The article exce...
DESPERATION: After Failing On Collusion And Obstru...
The Labor party's use of misleading advertising in...
Twitter is working with academic researchers to de...