"UN Human Rights Expert: Fossil Fuel Companies and Governments to Blame for ‘Full-Blown’ Climate Crisis", 27 Jun 2019

A United Nations human rights expert has called for a new report to serve as a stirring wake-up call for transformative change in the global response to the climate crisis, and warns that basic human rights, democracy, and the rule of law are at risk. 

“Climate change threatens truly catastrophic consequences across much of the globe and the human rights of vast numbers of people will be among the casualties,” Philip Alston, UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, wrote in the introduction of a new report released Tuesday. His report also highlights the role of national governments and fossil fuel companies in impeding action on climate change. The result is a “full-blown crisis” that cannot be solved by conventional means. 

“Business as usual is a response that invites disaster,” Alston wrote. 

The report, which will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Friday, explains that climate impacts directly threaten human rights to water, food, shelter, health and life. Hundreds of millions of people worldwide face drought, water scarcity, starvation, food insecurity, displacement, disease and death.  

“We have reached a point where the best-case outcome is widespread death and suffering by the end of this century, and the worst-case puts humanity on the brink of extinction,” Alston notes. 

Alston said fossil fuel corporations and governments that subsidize them bear the brunt of the blame. 

“Fossil fuel companies are the main driver of climate change: in 2015, the fossil fuel industry and its products accounted for 91 percent of global industrial greenhouse emissions and 70 percent of all human-made emissions,” the report said. “The industry has known for decades about their responsibility for rising CO2 levels and the likelihood that the rise would lead to catastrophic climate change…However, the industry took no action to change its business model.”