World faces 'climate apartheid', UN warns

The world is heading for "climate apartheid," where the rich buy their way out of the worst effects of global warming while the poor suffer the worst, a UN report warned on Tuesday. 

The report, submitted to the UN Human Rights Council by its special rapporteur on extreme poverty, Philip Alston, said business was supposed to play a vital role in coping with climate change, but could not be relied on to look after the poor. 

He cited New Yorkers being stranded without power or healthcare when Hurricane Sandy hit in 2012, while "the Goldman Sachs headquarters was protected by tens of thousands of its own sandbags and power from its generator." 

"We risk a 'climate apartheid' scenario where the wealthy pay to escape overheating, hunger and conflict while the rest of the world is left to suffer." 

The poor to bear the brunt 

"Perversely, while people in poverty are responsible for just a fraction of global emissions, they will bear the brunt of climate change, and have the least capacity to protect themselves," Alston said in a statement. 

He also cited previous research which found that climate change could leave 140 million across the developing world homeless by 2050. 

"Climate change threatens to undo the last 50 years of progress... in poverty reduction," the report said.

Even under the best-case scenario, hundreds of millions will face food insecurity, forced migration, disease and death, it warned.  

Governments not doing enough 

In the report, Alston criticized governments for doing little more than sending officials to conferences to make "sombre speeches," even though scientists and climate activists have been ringing alarm bells since the 1970s. 

"Thirty years of conventions appear to have done very little. From Toronto to Noordwijk to Rio to Kyoto to Paris, the language has been remarkably similar as States continue to kick the can down the road," Alston wrote. "States have marched past every scientific warning and threshold, and what was once considered catastrophic warming now seems like a best-case scenario." 

Since 1980, the United States alone has suffered 241 weather and climate disasters at a cumulative cost of $1.6 trillion. 

There had been some positive developments with renewable energy prices falling, coal becoming uncompetitive, emissions declining in 49 countries, 7,000 cities and 245 regions, and 6,000 companies committing to climate mitigation. However, Alston noted that the issue remains a "marginal concern" within the human rights community, and more attention and resources to it are needed.  

"In the United States, until recently the world's biggest producer of global emissions, President (Donald) Trump has placed former lobbyists in oversight roles, adopted industry talking points, presided over an aggressive rollback of environmental regulations, and is actively silencing and obfuscating climate science," Alston wrote.