Human rights threats in warming world could speed up climate action

(Reuters News, 18 Sep 2019) From migration to hunger, climate change is driving violations of human rights - and focusing on that may be a way to win faster climate action.

From worsening hunger and migration to greater loss of lives and property to wild weather, climate change is driving violations of human rights - and focusing on that may be a key way to win faster climate action, rights experts said Wednesday.

"Most of the states that are rather reticent to move on climate change have long accepted the full range of human rights obligations," said Philip Alston, chairman of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University.

Pushing those governments to uphold their rights commitments - and helping them see climate change as a fundamental threat to those rights - could spur action to contain climate damage, he told a pioneering summit on human rights and climate change.

Rising rights infringements could also offer a growing avenue to sue fossil fuel companies and the banks, insurers and other entities that support their work, legal experts said.

The meeting, in the build-up to the U.N. Secretary-General's climate summit Monday, brought together more than 200 indigenous people, human rights campaigners, environmental activists, lawyers, trade union representatives and academic experts.

Together, they are looking at ways to harness legal action, public protests and other measures to make clear the connections between the Earth's climate and human rights, and to build stronger pressure to protect both.

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Reuters News, 18 Sep 2019: Human rights threats in warming world could speed up climate action