Greenpeace: Climate crisis is a human rights issue
MANILA, Philippines — Climate crisis is not only an environmental or political problem but also a human rights issue that threatens people’s rights to life and livelihood, an environmental organization said Thursday
In a forum coinciding with the Human Rights Day, Greenpeace Southeast Asia Executive Director Yeb Saño pointed out that climate crisis poses danger to the realization of human rights.
“Climate emergency is not just an environmental conservation dilemma. It’s now the single biggest threat to lives, livelihood, human dignity, security. It is absolutely a human rights issue,” Saño said.
“Climate crisis is not an issue about disaster event alone. It is compromising human existence, the fundamental dignities of people, their lives, livelihood, their health, home and all the basics that people need in order to survive,” Rep. Edgar Chatto (Bohol) also said.
The Philippines is an archipelagic country highly vulnerable to the catastrophic impacts of climate change such as sea level rise, increased frequency of extreme weather events and rising temperatures.
“Climate crisis is indeed generational and Filipino communities are at the forefront of the impacts. The Philippines has been facing impacts of climate emergency not only today but from many decades already,” Saño said.
“We cannot anymore keep on telling ourselves we are resilient and through our resiliency, we can rise up and pick up the pieces every time and stand back on our feet. We need to stop romanticizing our resilience,” he added.
The historic Paris climate accord, signed five years ago, called for blocking global warming at well below 2 degrees Celsius and 1.5 degrees Celsius, if possible.
Earth’s surface has already warmed 1.2 degrees Celsius on average, and new study shows that a return to 2019 levels of carbon pollution would likely push the planet past the 1.5 degrees Celsius milestone around 2030.
Climate emergency
Last month, the House of Representatives adopted a resolution declaring a climate and environmental emergency. The declaration urges local government and government agencies to adopt policies to mitigate the effects of climate change, but does not legally compel them to act.
“The House resolution declaring climate and environmental emergency is not just a mere symbolic gesture but it should be an instrument that aims to ensure coherent actions in the executive and legislative agenda of our government,” Chatto, chair of House committee on climate change, said.
Saño said the climate emergency declaration is the start of “big steps” toward addressing concurrent crises.
“This declaration is a call to initiate an urgent whole-of-government and whole-of-society mobilization to respond to the climate emergency,” Saño said.
Better normal
Bill Bontigao, a Bicol-based youth leader, called on the government to set priorities to tackle the climate crisis and hold big polluters accountable for their contribution to the warming of the planet.
He also called on young people like him to act on the crisis to attain a “better normal.”
“I don’t want my nieces and nephews, including the next generations, experience a future where they can’t enjoy the rain nor the warm feeling of the sun because the world has changed so much… I don’t want them to experience a future where their survival is being challenged rampantly,” Bontigao, a survivor of Super Typhoon Rolly (Goni), said.
“I don’t want them to question me and my generations, telling me, ‘Uncle, what did you do when you had the chance to take action? Did you just do TikTok or Facebook? You and your generations failed to make a better world for us.’” — with report from Agence France-Presse
At current levels of greenhouse gas emissions, Earth could warm by 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) as early as 2030, the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change says in a landmark report.
"Global warming is likely to reach 1.5C between 2030 and 2052 if it continues to increase at the current rate," the report concluded with "high confidence."
Earth's surface has warmed one degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit)—enough to lift oceans and unleash a crescendo of deadly storms, floods and droughts—and is on track toward an unliveable 3C or 4C rise.
Japan issued heatstroke alerts Sunday to tens of millions of people as near-record high temperatures scorched swathes of the country, while torrential rain pummelled other regions.
National broadcaster NHK warned viewers that the heat was at life-threatening levels, as temperatures soared to nearly 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in some places, including the capital Tokyo.
"Please stay hydrated and use air conditioners appropriately, and refrain from outings that seem difficult," a news presenter said. — AFP
Developing countries voice "disappointment" as climate talks in Germany ended Thursday with frustrations flaring over a lack of momentum on helping vulnerable nations cope with the impacts of warming.
With world attention drawn towards other challenges, notably Russia's invasion of Ukraine and spiralling food, energy and economic crises, the technical discussions meant to lay the groundwork for key United Nations negotiations later this year were mired in disagreements.
Representatives of nearly 200 countries arrived in the city of Bonn buoyed by the ambition displayed six months ago during the UN COP26 negotiations in Glasgow, where countries rallied around the urgent threat of climate change.
"After that sense of emergency had been established, probably the expectations were very high," says Preety Bhandari, senior climate adviser at the World Resources Institute. — AFP
Negotiators from almost 200 countries will meet in Bonn Monday for climate talks tasked with reigniting momentum on tackling global warming, as Russia's invasion of Ukraine overshadows the threat from rising emissions.
The conference will set the stage for a fresh round of major United Nations talks later this year in Egypt.
It will also be a chance to test the resolve of nations facing a catalogue of crises, including escalating climate impacts, geopolitical tensions, bloodshed in Ukraine and the threat of a devastating global food crisis.
"Climate change is not an agenda we can afford to push back on our global schedule," said outgoing UN climate change chief Patricia Espinosa ahead of the meeting. — AFP
Nations in the G20 group of major economies have yet to strengthen greenhouse gas reduction goals despite agreeing to revisit their plans ahead of critical UN climate talks in November, according to an analysis by leading research NGOs seen exclusively by AFP.
At the Glasgow COP26 climate summit last year countries pledged to review inadequate plans for cutting carbon pollution this decade ahead of the COP27 conference.
Two G20 nations — India and Turkey — have failed to update their original carbon cutting plans submitted in 2015, as required under the Paris Agreement.
Neither has non-G20 member Egypt, which will host the COP27 climate summit in November. — AFP
Four key climate change indicators all set new record highs in 2021, the United Nations said Wednesday, warning that the global energy system was driving humanity towards catastrophe.
Greenhouse gas concentrations, sea level rise, ocean heat and ocean acidification all set new records last year, the UN's World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said in its "State of the Global Climate in 2021" report.
"The global energy system is broken and bringing us ever closer to climate catastrophe," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said of the findings. — AFP
- Latest
- Trending
