With Paris Climate Talks looming, Legal Experts find All Countries must Act on Climate by Academics Stand Against Poverty, agencies 9:09am 2nd Jun, 2015   June 2015    In the run-up to the global climate meeting in Paris this December, countries are publishing their commitments. Mexico earned much praise for proposing to cut its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 22% by 2030. But this exemplary reduction is relative to what Mexico might otherwise have emitted in 2030 – and constitutes a substantial increase over its 2013 emissions.    Even on a per-capita basis, Mexico is proposing merely to keep its GHG emissions flat at 5.9 tons of CO2 equivalent.    Mexico’s celebrated proposal foreshadows that governmental commitments will be nowhere near sufficient to keep the rise of the global average surface temperature below 2 degrees Celsius. It is the scientists’ consensus that respecting this limit is necessary to avert a climate catastrophe and requires keeping humanity’s cumulative post-2011 CO2 emissions below 1 trillion tons for a 2/3 probability of staying below the 2°C threshold (IPCC Synthesis Report, Table 2.2, page 64).    If humanity emits GHG at Mexico’s rate of 5.9 tons per person until 2030, we will have used up 87% of our remaining CO2 budget by then.    A severely worsening climate would inflict immense harms upon poor and vulnerable populations: through extreme weather events, flooding of coastal areas, scarcity of food and water, spreading disease vectors and violent struggles over diminishing natural resources.    Predictably, these harms will jeopardize human rights by causing millions of premature deaths and unimaginable deprivations.    Given this prospect, is it permissible to continue emitting CO2 at Mexico’s rate – or at the even higher rates of the EU or US (currently 7 and 16 tons per capita, respectively)?    Morally, the answer is clear; it would be wrong to risk such catastrophic harms. But many assume that states are legally free to continue in their polluting ways unless and until they have contracted otherwise.    Exactly this assumption has now been challenged by an international group of eminent jurists in their Oslo Principles, supported by an elaborate legal commentary. Academics Stand Against Poverty (ASAP) President Thomas Pogge helped convene the group of legal experts who wrote the principles.    The essence of the Oslo Principles can be conveyed in three steps. First, according to the best joint interpretation of international law, human rights law, national environmental law and tort law, it would be unlawful knowingly to inflict the harms that a large majority of climate scientists predict may well result from exceeding the 2°C threshold.    Second, honouring the precautionary principle, we must not proceed with any course of action if a substantial proportion of climate scientists judge it to court a serious risk of a catastrophic outcome. It is not legally permissible to subject the human rights of billions of present and future persons to a game of Russian roulette.    Third, states are legally required collectively to restrain emissions so as to stay below the 2°C threshold. They can meet this requirement through a sufficiently strong and effective agreement.    Failing that, each is legally required – regardless of what the others do – to do its fair share toward meeting the collective legal obligation. Doing one’s fair share involves reaching a glide path that takes per capita CO2 emissions down from the global average of about 5 tons today to about 1 ton in 2050 through steady reductions of about 4.5% each year.    There is no good reason why any national population should be entitled to a more favorable glide path than others.    According to the Oslo Principles, countries above the required glide path are legally required to take all reasonable measures to reach it as quickly as possible and, insofar as they cannot reach it immediately, must take compensating action by funding emissions reductions in poorer countries so as to offset their own excess.    Countries below the glide path must take all emissions-lowering measures whose net costs are either nil or covered by others. The poorer countries need energy for their development, of course. But this should be green energy that adds at most minimally to atmospheric greenhouse gases.    A climate catastrophe is threatening our planet. Each country can do its fair share toward reducing humanity’s carbon emissions and has a legal obligation to do so.    By explicating and enforcing this legal obligation, legal scholars and national and international courts can play a crucial role in averting one of the largest systematic human rights violations in human history.    http://academicsstand.org/2015/06/with-paris-talks-looming-legal-experts-find-all-countries-must-act-on-climate/    June 2015    World on track for highly dangerous 4+ degrees warming, by Reuters, Guardian, agencies    Briefing the press at UN Headquarters, Assistant Secretary-General for Climate Change Janos Pasztor said, “The findings of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change action show that action now can limit climate change, but if we wait, it will be increasingly difficult and much more expensive,” Mr. Pasztor told reporters.    In 2010, governments agreed that emissions need to be reduced so that global temperature increases are limited to below 2 degrees Celsius.    “Let’s remind ourselves that the business as usual scenario is showing us a exceeding dangerous 4-degrees path or more, and that we need to bring it down to at least the 2-degrees path,” said Mr. Pasztor.    Bonn, Germany, June 2, 2015    "Radical transition" of economy needed to curb climate change-study.    Harmful impacts of global warming such as drought, heat waves and sea level rise are mounting and show a need for a "radical transition" to a greener economy, a study presented at U.N. climate talks said on Tuesday.    Damage is growing even though average temperatures have risen only 0.85 degree Celsius (1.5 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times, less than half the 2C set as a maximum acceptable rise by almost 200 nations, it said.    "Negative impacts are not only something in the future - they are something now," said Zou Ji, a co-leader of the U.N. review of consultations about science policy for governments working on a U.N. climate deal in Paris in December.    All sides at the presentation of the report, on the sidelines of June 1-11 talks on the Paris accord, said government promises so far for curbs on greenhouse gas emissions were too weak to stay below the 2C goal.    "Limiting global warming to below 2C necessitates a radical transition.. not merely a fine tuning of current trends," according to the report based on talks between experts and governments.    Such a transition would mean deep cuts in greenhouse gases, shifting from fossil fuels such as coal and oil to renewable energies such as wind, hydro and solar power, it said.    The report also concluded that the 2C goal was too often wrongly viewed as an acceptable maximum, a "guardrail" up to which climate change would be manageable.    But impacts of climate change, such as a melt of Greenland''s ice that is raising sea levels, showed risks were already increasing.    "The guardrail concept in which up to 2C would be considered safe would be better seen as an upper limit, a defence line," said Andreas Fischlin, a co-leader of the report.    Thomas Stocker, a senior Swiss scientist from the U.N.''s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said governments faced tough choices in managing the risks of warming.    "The elephant in the room is what we can do to change the trend in emissions," he told delegates.    Many developing nations favour setting a ceiling of 1.5C above pre-industrial times, arguing that their economies are vulnerable to impacts such as storms, floods, droughts and sea level rise.    Achieving the 2C (3.6 Fahrenheit) target has been the driving force for climate negotiators and scientists, who say it is the limit beyond which the world will suffer ever worsening floods, droughts, storms and rising seas.    But just six months before world leaders convene in Paris, prospects are fading for a deal that would keep average temperatures below the ceiling. Greenhouse gas emissions have reached record highs in recent years.    And proposed cuts in carbon emissions from 2020 and promises to deepen them in subsequent reviews - offered by governments wary of the economic cost of shifting from fossil fuels - are unlikely to be enough for the 2C goal.    "Paris will be a funeral without a corpse," said David Victor, a professor of international relations at the University of California, San Diego, who predicts the 2C goal will slip away despite insistence by many governments that is still alive.    "It''s just not feasible," said Oliver Geden, of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. "Two degrees is a focal point for the climate debate but it doesn''t seem to be a focal point for political action."    Pledges made by countries to cut their carbon emissions ahead of a crunch climate summit in Paris later this year will delay the world passing the threshold for dangerous global warming by just two years, according to a new analysis.    The research, led by a former lead author on the UN’s climate science panel, found that the submissions so far by 36 countries to the UN would likely delay the world passing the threshold until 2038, rather than 2036 without the carbon cuts.    The analysis by the non-profit Climate Analytics comes as climate negotiators from nearly 200 countries met in Bonn and scientists warned the agreement hoped for in Paris would not keep temperatures to UN’s target of holding temperature rises below 2C above pre-industrial levels.    None of the pledges, known in UN jargon as Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), were found to be in line with the 2C limit, when a fair global distribution of emissions cuts was factored into countries’ offers.    Pledges made by Russia and Canada would be consistent with potentially catastrophic warming of 4C if the pledges were matched with a similar level of ambition globally, according to the research.    “The action and ambition we have seen to date is far from sufficient and unless it is rapidly accelerated, the difficulties of limiting warming below 2C will be extreme,” said Dr Bill Hare, the founder of Climate Analytics and a former Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) lead author.    But he added: “What we see in the economic and technological potential for emissions reductions gives us hope that if governments are willing to move fast enough in the next 5-10 years, we might still make it. All that is lacking is political will.”    Achim Steiner, the director of the UN Environment Programme, said this week that he would measure countries’ commitments by “looking at whether the pledges add up to anything that comes close to ensuring that we at least have the possibility to stay within a 2C scenario.”    The new analysis suggests an uphill struggle. Some civil society groups complain that the focus on national pledges distracts attention from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change’s (UNFCCC) goal of stabilising atmospheric greenhouse gas emissions at safe levels.    “When the UNFCCC started 21 years ago, atmospheric CO2 concentration were at 300 parts per million (ppm). Today they are at 400 ppm, and increasing faster each year than the one before,” said Michael Wadleigh. “Despite all the UNFCCC’s negotiated agreements, the body is failing in its key objective.”    Reto Knutti, a lead author for the IPCC’s last major climate report, said that scientists would prefer the world to set global carbon quotas – rather than percentages of national emissions set against baseline years – but admitted that this was a hard sell.    “We presented carbon budget schemes in Warsaw two years ago [the UN climate summit in 2013], and the policy-makers all said ‘we agree and its urgent’. But at the same time, they tried to tweak things so they had to do as little as possible,” he said.    Nicholas Stern, the author of an influential review of the economics of climate change, said that the Paris summit would be crucial in at least setting a “floor of ambition”    “The question is how fast can you ramp up,” he said. “There’s no doubt that [INDCs] are coming in too high for 2030 for 2C of warming. That’s crystal clear. Much too high.”    Christiana Figueres, the head of the UN climate secretariat, acknowledges Paris is unlikely to meet 2C but said future rounds of pledges could meet the target.    Climate Change and Human Rights - Joint statement by UN Special Procedures on the occasion of World Environment Day.    This year, World Environment Day occurs during a meeting of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP), which is meeting in Bonn, Germany, to negotiate a climate agreement to be adopted this December in Paris. The theme for World Environment Day is “Seven Billion Dreams. One Planet. Consume with Care.” As the UN Environment Programme explains, “Many of the Earth’s ecosystems are nearing critical tipping points of depletion or irreversible change, pushed by high population growth and economic development... Living within planetary boundaries is the most promising strategy for ensuring a healthy future. Human prosperity need not cost the earth.”    As human rights experts of the United Nations system, we take this occasion to draw attention again to the grave harm climate change poses to the worldwide enjoyment of human rights. Last December, on Human Rights Day, all of the UN human rights experts came together to urge States to recognize that climate change threatens human rights, and to urge States to include language in the 2015 climate agreement providing that the Parties shall respect, protect and fulfill human rights, in all of their climate change related actions. Since then, our work has further confirmed the urgent need to take effective action.    Many of us recently prepared a report for the Climate Vulnerable Forum, an international partnership of twenty countries highly vulnerable to a warming planet, which explains that an average increase in global temperature of even 2.0° C will adversely affect a wide range of human rights, including the rights to life, health, food, and water, among many others.    Climate change threatens these rights in many ways. Deaths, injuries and displacement of persons from climate-related disasters, such as tropical cyclones, will increase, as will mortality from heat waves, drought, disease and malnutrition.    The Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that the foreseeable consequences of even a 2°C rise include an increasing probability of “declining work productivity, morbidity (e.g., dehydration, heat stroke, and heat exhaustion), and mortality from exposure to heat waves. Particularly at risk are agricultural and construction workers as well as children, homeless people, the elderly, and women who have to walk long hours to collect water.”    Climate change will exacerbate existing stresses on water resources and compound the problem of access to safe drinking water, currently denied to an estimated 1.1 billion people globally and a major cause of morbidity and disease. It is estimated that about 8% of the global population will see a severe reduction in water resources with a 1°C rise in global mean temperature, rising to 14% at 2°C.    Climate change is already affecting the ability of some communities to feed themselves, and the number affected will grow as temperatures rise. As the IPCC report states, “all aspects of food security are potentially affected by climate change, including food access, utilization, and price stability.”    Climate change will affect most severely the lives of those who already struggle to enjoy their human rights, including women, children, the elderly and the poor.    In the words of the Fifth Assessment report, “People who are socially, economically, culturally, politically, institutionally or otherwise marginalized are especially vulnerable to climate change and also to some adaptation and mitigation responses.”    The report states that “future impacts of climate change, extending from the near term to the long term, mostly expecting 2°C scenarios, will slow down economic growth and poverty reduction, further erode food security, and trigger new poverty traps, the latter particularly in urban areas and emerging hotspots of hunger.”    Poverty becomes a particular vulnerability factor for children to fall victims of sexual abuse and exploitation. Some people will be forced to migrate. However, because the ability to migrate often depends on mobility and resources, migration opportunities may be least available to those who are most vulnerable to climate change, resulting in people becoming trapped in locations vulnerable to environmental hazards, further exacerbating their suffering.    Moreover, where climate-change-induced migration is forced, people may be migrating in an irregular situation and therefore may be more vulnerable to human rights violations through the migration process.    Climate change will also devastate the other forms of life that share this planet with us. As temperatures increase more than 2°C, studies predict increasingly disastrous consequences for biodiversity. For example, one study found that 20-30% of the assessed plant and animal species are likely to be at increasingly high risk of extinction as global mean temperatures exceed a warming of 2 to 3°C6.    These consequences will be felt by humans as well: with respect to the right to health, the fifth assessment report explains that biodiversity loss “can lead to an increase in the transmission of infectious diseases in humans.”    Bringing a human rights perspective to climate change not only clarifies what is at stake; it also helps to ensure that responses are coherent, effective and responsive to the concerns of those most affected. As the Human Rights Council affirmed in its Resolution 10/4, “human rights obligations and commitments have the potential to inform and strengthen international and national policy making in the area of climate change, promoting policy coherence, legitimacy and sustainable outcomes.”    Citing that resolution, the State Parties to the UNFCCC have already agreed, in the 2010 outcome document adopted by COP16 in Cancun, Mexico, “that Parties should, in all climate change-related actions, fully respect human rights.”    Respecting human rights in the formulation and implementation of climate policy requires, among other things, that the State Parties meet their duties to provide access to information in accessible formats and technologies appropriate to all, and facilitate informed public participation in decision making, especially the participation of those most affected by climate change and by the actions taken to address it.    We urge States to make sure that human rights are at the core of climate change governance. We encourage them to sign the Geneva Pledge for Human Rights in Climate Action, through which many countries have already voluntarily committed themselves to facilitate the sharing of best practices and information among human rights and climate experts at a national level.    And we renew our call on State parties to maintain language in the 2015 climate agreement that provides that the parties shall, in all climate change related actions, respect, protect, promote and fulfil human rights for all.    Climate change is one of the greatest human rights challenges of our generation, and it is our generation that must meet it. Indeed, the heads of governments and their climate negotiators represent the very last generation that can prevent catastrophic environmental harm to a vast array of human rights. We will continue working to protect human rights from this grave threat.    http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=16049&LangID=E    May 2015    Ditching 2C warming goal will condemn millions, by Saleemul Huq.    As the 21st conference of parties (COP21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) looms, some countries and groups are managing expectations.    Levels of ambition, funding and the temperature target are all being questioned.    There’s a reason for this. Many blame heightened expectations for the collapse of the 2009 UN climate summit in Copenhagen, the previous attempt to reach an ambitious global agreement.    Hence, there is an attempt being made to lower expectations for COP21 so that the outcome can be couched as a success even if it fails to achieve an ambitious and legally binding agreement.    This is clearly happening with regard to the 2C temperature target.    The globally agreed target of warming of 2C above pre industrial levels represents the threshold of globally dangerous temperature rise which must be avoided.    An alliance of vulnerable developing countries including the Least Developed Countries, Small Island Developing States, and the Africa group have argued for the target to be made 1.5C.    The UNFCCC has a review of the temperature target ongoing.    There are arguments now being made by some that the 2 Degree target is “unrealistic” and should be dropped.    This argument based on perception of political situations in developed countries where there is a reluctance by some groups of vested interests, primarily the fossil fuel industry and their lobbyists and paid politicians , to take the decisions and implement the actions that are needed.    What these “political realists” fail to realise is that there is another, “realism of physics” that trumps their political realism where an increase in global temperatures above 2C will condemn many millions of poor people in the developing world.    The rich won’t escape the consequences. Its children will face the costs of which will be many multiples of the costs of taking action now.    There are limits of applying a cost benefit analysis to the problem of taking action to tackle climate change: the costs of inaction are borne by others (namely the poor and future generations) while the benefits of inaction are accrued to the rich polluters of today.    Hence why should the polluters pay for action to stop polluting when they will not benefit from those investments in pollution control (as one polluter has been known to say: “what have future generations ever done for me?”).    Thus there is really no incentive for polluters to stop polluting, other than regulation.    Even with regard to the 2C temperature target there is a real price to be paid by some poor people who will die and some threatened ecosystems which will inevitably disappear at 2C which would be saved if the temperature target was made 1C.    In other words, the difference between a 2C target and a 1.5C target is in the order or several tens if not hundreds of millions of people in poor counties losing lives and livelihoods and some key ecosystems being irreparably damaged or even lost.    Hence even a decision to stick with the 2C global target is to agree to condemn millions of our fellow citizens on the planet to possible loss of lives and some critical ecosystems being lost.    The Least Developed Countries (LDC) group, the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) group and the Africa group all strongly urge that the global target be changed from 2C to 1.5C and argue that it is both economically and technologically feasible to achieve but the deficit lies in the lack of political will to act by the polluters.    The recent report by the Climate Vulnerable Forum under the leadership of the Philippines, reiterates this point.    Therefore the leaders meeting in Paris in December must be aware of the consequences a decision to stick to the 2C target is a deliberate decision to condemn millions of their fellow citizens of planet Earth to misery and possible death.    * Saleemul Huq is director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development. 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