According to the U.N.'s Human Rights Council, the climate change menace the human rights and jeopardise the last 50 years of advancements in development, global health, and poverty reduction.
In this article we present the main highlights of the full report.
Which is the status quo?
Joseph Stiglitz, winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize for Economics, has referred to climate change as the World War III. Before reviewing the impacts that climate change can have on people on poverty, but not only, it is important to raise our awareness about the magnitude of the challenge to face.
How climate change impacts on human rights, poverty and inequality?
The impacts of climate change can be devastating. We must realise and be conscious of what is the future that await us and the next generations if we, as a society, do not take action. Hereafter follow some of the estimations presented in the report:
1. A global warming of +2ºC could put from 100 to 400 million people in risk of hunger, and 1 to 2 billion more people may no longer have adequate water -consider that the world population in 2018 was 7,6 billion.
2. Climate change can cause crop yield losses of 30% by 2080.
3. Climate change can cause 250000 additional deaths from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress in the period between 2030 and 2050.
4. Climate change could displace 140 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America.
5. Climate change is more present in areas where poor people tend to live, being their homes and assets more exposed and becoming more vulnerable to natural disasters.
6. Climate change could push 122 million more people into extreme poverty -defined by the World Bank as people living on less than US$1,90 per day.
7. The poorest people, who have contributed the least to greenhouse gas emissions, will be the ones more affected by climate change and the ones with less resources to face it. On the other hand, the richest population, who have contributed the most to the emissions, are the ones placed in the best position to cope with climate change.
8. 10% of the global carbon emissions come from the poorest half of the world's population (3,5 billion people). 50% of the global carbon emissions arrive from the richest 10% of the world's population.
9. A person in the richest 1% of the population uses x175 more carbon than a person in the poorest 10%.
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