A/74/161 resources. Also by 2050, 4 million people, and around 70 per cent of Arctic infrastructure, will be threatened by thawing permafrost. 9 Over a longer time frame, entire States are at risk of becoming uninhabitable, including Kiribati, Maldives and Tuvalu. 11. Climate change is also a major contributor to the declining diversity of life on Earth, with potentially devastating impacts on coral reefs, tropical forests and Arctic ecosystems. In the most comprehensive assessment of the state of nature ever undertaken, the Intergovernmental Science -Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services recently identified climate change as the third most important risk factor contributing to the loss of biodiversity. 10 B. Causes of the global climate crisis 12. The human activities that have the largest impact on the Earth’s climate are the burning of fossil fuels and biomass, deforestation and industrial agriculture. Seventy per cent of greenhouse gas emissions are produced by the burning of fossil fuels and biomass for electricity and heat (25 per cent of the global total), industrial processes (21 per cent), transportation (14 per cent) and other indirect energy use (10 per cent). Agriculture, deforestation and changes in land use cause 24 per cent of emissions, while building operations produce the remaining 6 per cent. Key greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide (76 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions), methane (16 per cent), nitrous oxide (6 per cent) and fluorinated gases such as chlorofluorocarbons and hydrofluorocarbons (2 per cent). Short-lived climate pollutants, including black carbon, methane and hydrofluorocarbons, have substantial short-term impacts on climate change, making it a priority to reduce these emissions. Black carbon, for example, is produced by inefficient combustion in cookstoves and diesel engines. Black carbon deposits on Himalayan glaciers are accelerating melting, thereby threatening a vital water source for more than a billion people in South Asia. 13. The poorest half of the world’s population, 3.9 billion people, generate only 10 per cent of global emissions. Conversely, the richest 10 per cent produce half of global emissions. The wealthiest 1 per cent have a carbon footprint that is 2,000 times larger than that of the poorest 1 per cent. 11 Just 100 businesses (known as “carbon majors”) are responsible for 71 per cent of industrial greenhouse gas emissions since 1988. 12 14. Three quarters of global emissions are produced by 20 States, namely (in diminishing order) China, the United States, India, Indonesia, the Russian Federation, Brazil, Japan, Canada, Germany, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mex ico, the Republic of Korea, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Australia, the United Kingdom, Nigeria, Argentina, Zambia and Thailand. 13 Taking into account historical emissions, some nations are disproportionately responsible for the climate crisis. The United St ates has produced 25 per cent of global emissions since 1750, followed by China with 12 per cent and the United Kingdom with 5 per cent. 14 These facts have important ramifications for the human rights obligations of developed States, which must reduce emissions more rapidly and pay the lion’s share of the costs to assist developing States. 15. Deforestation has declined since the 1990s but continues, with an average loss of 6.5 million hectares of natural forests annually from 2000 to 2015. 15 These losses were partially offset by an increase in planted forests, averaging 3.2 million hectares __________________ 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 19-11977 United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Global Linkages: A graphic look at the changing Arctic (UNEP, 2019). Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, “Summary for policymakers of the global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services”, document IPBES/7/10/Add.1. Oxfam, “Extreme Carbon Inequality: Why the Paris climate deal must put the poorest, lowest emitting and most vulnerable people first”, Oxfam Media Briefing (Oxfam, 2015). Richard Heede, “Tracing anthropogenic carbon dioxide and methane emissions to fossil f uel and cement producers, 1854–2010”, Climatic Change, vol. 122, issue 1–2, pp. 229–241 (January 2014). Climate Watch, Global greenhouse gas emissions database. Available at www.climatewatchdata.org/ghg-emissions?regions=TOP&source=34. Our World in Data, Cumulative Share of Global CO 2 Emissions. The long-run history: Cumulative CO 2. https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions#the-longrun-history-cumulative-co2. UNEP, Global Environment Outlook 6: Healthy Planet, Healthy People (Nairobi, UNEP, 2019). 7/22