A/74/161 I. The global climate emergency 1. We are in the midst of an unprecedented environmental crisis. Human activities are causing pollution, extinction and climate change. Air pollution causes millions of premature deaths annually, including hundreds of thousands of children aged five and under. Wildlife populations are in free fall and one million species are at risk of extinction. The most pressing environmental risk is climate change, which not only exacerbates air pollution and biodiversity loss, but multiplies a broad range of risks, detailed below, leading to negative impacts on billions of people. A growing number of States, including Canada, France and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, have declared a global climate emergency. 2. Human society developed during the Holocene, an 11,500 -year-long interglacial period characterized by a relatively stable climate. The Holocene epoch enabled the emergence of agriculture, cities and civilization. However, human activities – burning fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas), deforestation and industrial agriculture – are changing the Earth’s climate, destabilizing the climate system. Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide have risen by 50 per cent since the Industrial Revolution, from 280 parts per million to more than 415 parts per million. The last time carbon dioxide levels were this high was during the Pli ocene epoch 3 million years ago, meaning that our species, homo sapiens, has never experienced this situation. 1 To make matters worse, there is a risk that natural feedback mechanisms, such as the melting of Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets or methane re leased from melting permafrost, could trigger catastrophic runaway climate change. 3. We have entered a new geological epoch of great impacts, risks and uncertainty, referred to as the Anthropocene, in which human actions are transforming the Earth. With continued economic growth, high energy and resource consumption in wealthy nations, and the world population expected to exceed 9 billion by 2050, it is clear that the global climate crisis will worsen, with devastating implications for human rights, unless society changes direction. 4. In its latest report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated that “limiting global warming to 1.5°C would require rapid, far-reaching, and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society”. 2 To meet the 1.5°C target, urgent and effective actions must be implemented immediately to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45 per cent by 2030, phase out unabated fossil fuel burning by the middle of the century and reverse deforestation. To empower and protect vulnerable populations requires the mobilization of at least $100 billion in annual funding to assist low-income countries, and establishing a new fund, perhaps using an air travel levy, to support small island developing States and least developed countries in addressing loss and damage caused by climate change. Wealthy countries and other large emitters must lead these efforts and provide the majority of the requisite financing. 5. To prepare the present report, the Special Rapporteur held consultations in Geneva with civil society organizations on 6 March 2019, with States that have signed the Geneva Pledge for Human Rights in Climate Action on 7 March 2019, with small island developing States on 8 March 2019, and with other States, international organizations and stakeholders on 21 June 2019. These consultations complemented a call for inputs on climate change and human rights circulated on 8 April 2019. The Special Rapporteur is grateful to Colombia, Cuba, Germany, Greece, Honduras, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Mali, Mauritius, Mexico, Moldova, Monaco, Norway, Senegal, Slovenia, Sweden and Uruguay, as well as to civil society organizations and academics, for their helpful submissions. 3 The Special Rapporteur also met with children and young people from Bolivia (Plurinational State of), Canada, Colombia, El Salvador, Fiji and Peru, and heard their pleas for urgent action to address the global climate crisis. __________________ 1 2 3 19-11977 IPCC, Global Warming of 1.5°C. An IPCC Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty (IPCC, 2018). IPCC, Press release 2018/24/PR, “Summary for Policymakers of IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5ºC approved by governments” (October 2018). Available at www.ipcc.ch/2018/ 10/08/summary-for-policymakers-of-ipcc-special-report-on-global-warming-of-1-5c-approvedby-governments/. Submissions are available at www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Environment/SREnvironment/ Pages/SafeClimate.aspx. 5/22