.The climate crisis has a direct impact on human rights. The world is losing $16 million an hour due to the climate crisis Climate and Environment
Between 2000 and 2019, economic losses and direct damage from climate change worldwide amounted to at least $2.8 trillion, equivalent to $16 million per hour. Such data, speaking at a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council on the climate crisis, was given by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk.
“Our planet, human rights and our very future are in grave danger,” the High Commissioner stressed. – The glaciers are melting. The oceans are warming. Tropical forests are burning. Rivers and lakes are drying up.”
According to Volker Türk, there is an 80 percent chance that in one of the next five years the average annual global temperature will exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels. “While this warming does not constitute a complete violation of the goals of the Paris Agreement,” the High Commissioner said, “we are one terrifying step closer to the situation we have fought so hard to prevent.”
The climate crisis, Turk continued, has a direct impact on people’s rights. By 2030, it is predicted that more than two percent of total work hours worldwide will be lost each year due to heat stress. Today, more than a third of heat-related deaths are caused by climate change.
“Under existing mechanisms, countries most responsible for climate change are required to provide climate finance to address the damage human rights damage caused by climate change,” continued the High Commissioner. “Such funding must be commensurate with the scale of damage and be accessible to affected communities. Moreover, it should be based on grants rather than loans, so as not to drag countries into ever-deepening cycles of debt.”
The climate crisis will lead to new emergencies, new disasters and new unknowns, Volker Türk warned, calling on states to consider what new international mechanisms might be needed now and in the future to ensure human rights and accountability.