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	Earth Day: New User Guide on the right to a healthy and sustainable environment by David Boyd Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to a Clean, Healthy and Sustainable Environment   Apr. 2024   United Nations resolutions that recognise the right to a clean and healthy environment must translate into concrete policies, says David Boyd, UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to a Clean, Healthy and Sustainable Environment:   “Today is Earth Day. This important day resonates even more deeply now that the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment has been recognised at the international level through UN resolutions. Earth day is also an international reminder of the urgent need for action to tackle the environmental crisis. This is why, we have chosen this day to publish a User Guide on the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.   The UN resolutions on the right to a healthy environment have provided a much-need jolt of hope to a world struggling to cope with a devastating pandemic and a climate emergency. As soon as the resolutions were adopted, people began to ask: What next? How can we turn these words into tangible, concrete actions that will improve peoples’ lives and protect this uniquely beautiful and biodiverse planet?   The Guide seeks to answer these questions by looking into how the right can be used to prevent unsustainable and unjust laws, policies, projects and plans proposed by governments and businesses, and how it can be used to advance the transformative and systemic changes urgently needed to achieve a just and sustainable future.   The User Guide aims to provide useful and inspiring advice to civil society, social movements and communities on how to accelerate implementation of the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.   All people must have clean air to breathe, safe water to drink, healthy food to eat, a safe climate for themselves and their children and flourishing biodiversity for present and future generations. Transforming today’s economic systems based on exploiting people and nature, is the biggest challenge facing humanity.   But I believe that by working together we can achieve the just and sustainable future that so many people so deeply desire. This User Guide can be seen as a small step on that journey.   It is obvious that we have a long distance to travel and many mountains to climb before everyone, everywhere, fully enjoys their right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. But as I have said to countless amazing activists and environmental human rights defenders across the world I have met along this journey: We are strongest when we use our voices together in global harmony.”   http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/04/un-expert-publishes-user-guide-right-healthy-and-sustainable-environment http://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/issues/environment/srenvironment/activities/2024-04-22-stm-earth-day-sr-env.pdf   * Report by the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights and climate change, Elisa Morgera, on the efforts made by experts in poverty, health, Indigenous peoples’ rights, finance and the environment on understanding how climate change is affecting the human rights of people around the world: http://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/ahrc5646-scene-setting-report-report-special-rapporteur-promotion-and   Mar. 2024   Rethinking business and economic paradigms for people and planet to survive. (OHCHR)   There is an urgent need to rethink business and economic paradigms that have pushed humanity’s collective impacts beyond planetary limits, a UN expert said today.   “We are sabotaging Earth’s life support system, with profound consequences for human rights,” said David Boyd, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment.   In his report to the Human Rights Council, he stated that the current practices of large businesses are threatening the ecological integrity of the planet and abusing human rights, including the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.   “States have failed to adequately regulate, monitor, prevent and punish businesses for their abuses of the climate, environment and human rights,” Boyd said. “The situation is further exacerbated as States often encourage, enable and subsidise destructive business activities.”   The Special Rapporteur highlighted some of the most destructive impacts of business enterprises on the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, which are also documented in a policy brief supplementing his report.   “All businesses are responsible for respecting human rights, including the right to a healthy environment,” he said.   The expert stressed that States have a duty to protect human rights from actual and potential harm that businesses may cause, and an obligation to hold businesses accountable.   “The recent recognition of the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment has game-changing potential if States and businesses comply with their obligations and responsibilities,” he said.   Boyd made recommendations on how to fulfil this right and achieve ecological sustainability. He called for shifting to holistic alternatives to GDP for measuring progress, human rights due diligence legislation, rights-based climate and environmental laws, making polluters pay, and new business paradigms focused on society benefits instead of shareholder profits.   “In the big picture, humanity needs to shrink its collective ecological footprint, yet billions of people in the global South need to expand their energy and material use to achieve a comfortable standard of living and fully enjoy their human rights,” the Special Rapporteur said.   “Society must confront this paradox. Wealthy States must take the lead in reducing their footprints and financing sustainable and equitable growth in the global South.”   “Paradoxically, businesses have a critical role in supporting society’s quest for a just and sustainable future. Therefore, we need to promote good practices and require all businesses to shift to a paradigm that puts people and the planet before profit,” the expert said.   http://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/ahrc5543-business-planetary-boundaries-and-right-clean-healthy-and http://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-environment/policy-briefs http://news.un.org/en/story/2024/03/1147322   Oct. 2023   Investor-State dispute settlements have catastrophic consequences for the environment and human rights: UN expert. (OHCHR)   A UN expert has warned of the devastating effects of Investor-State dispute settlement with dire consequences for a wide range of human rights and climate action.   “At a time when it is imperative that States accelerate the pace and ambition of climate and environmental action to prevent planetary catastrophe and fulfil their human rights obligations, a daunting obstacle has emerged,” said David Boyd, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment presenting his report today to the General Assembly.   His report chronicles compelling evidence that a secretive international arbitration process called investor-State dispute settlement has become a major obstacle to urgent actions needed to address the planetary environmental and human rights crises.   “Foreign investors use the dispute settlement process to seek exorbitant compensation from States that strengthen environmental protection, with the fossil fuel and mining industries already winning over $100 billion in awards,” the expert said. “Such cases create regulatory chill.”   The surge in fossil-fuel ISDS claims could not come at a worse time. Humanity has reached the now or never point for achieving the Paris Agreement objective of limiting global warming to 1.5°C, a goal that requires achieving net zero emissions by 2050 - incompatible with new coal, oil or gas developments.   Governments fulfilling their commitments under the Paris Agreement on climate change may be liable to oil and gas corporations for $340 billion in future ISDS cases – a major disincentive for ambitious climate action.   “As ISDS arbitration tribunals routinely prioritise foreign investment and corporate interests above environmental and human rights considerations, ISDS claims have devastating consequences for a wide range of human rights, exacerbating the disproportionate harms suffered by vulnerable and marginalised populations,” the expert said.   As the overwhelming majority of fossil fuel and mining ISDS claims are brought by investors from the global North against respondent States in the global South, the ISDS system has especially devastating consequences for the global South, perpetuating extractivism and economic colonialism.   The Special Rapporteur identifies specific actions that States must take to avoid future claims under the investor-State dispute settlement process and fulfil their human rights obligations in his report.   http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/10/investor-state-dispute-settlements-have-catastrophic-consequences http://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/a78168-paying-polluters-catastrophic-consequences-investor-state-dispute http://www.iied.org/fossil-fuel-companies-rake-80-billion-taxpayers-money-through-shadowy-investment-tribunals http://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20231215-countries-risk-paying-polluters-billions-to-regulate-for-climate-un-expert http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/feb/12/litigation-terrorism-how-corporations-are-winning-billions-from-governments   http://insideclimatenews.org/news/21102023/un-protests-isds-as-economic-colonialism/ http://insideclimatenews.org/news/14012024/wealthy-corporations-extract-millions-from-developing-countries-isds/ http://www.iied.org/icj-should-address-legal-contradictions-holding-back-action-climate-change http://www.iied.org/21871iied http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(23)00214-0/fulltext http://www.iisd.org/publications/report/investor-state-disputes-fossil-fuel-industry Visit the related web page
	Climate adaptation becomes less effective as the world warms by Down to Earth, World Weather Attribution service   Mar. 2024   Indians may already be experiencing temperatures close to limits of human survivability without even being aware. (Down to Earth)   The India Meteorological Department (IMD) declared 2024’s first heatwave conditions for isolated pockets of west Rajasthan on March 27, 2024. But there are many more places that likely suffered from humid heatwaves and will continue to do so in the next few days. These are not being accounted for in IMD’s heatwave data.   The basic criteria for IMD to declare a heatwave is when the temperature of a place crosses 40 degrees Celsius (°C) in the plains, 37°C in the coastal areas and 30°C in the hills. These temperature values are the thresholds set by IMD for the declaration of heatwaves in India.   Apart from this, the temperature of a particular day has to be above normal by at least 4.5°C for two consecutive days for a heatwave to be declared.   When the temperature crosses 45°C, the weather agency immediately declares a heatwave without considering the deviation from normal temperature for that particular place. But this criteria does not take into account relative humidity, which is increasingly becoming a cause of humid heatwaves.   During a humid heatwave, the temperature felt by the human body or by other animals and plants is much higher. This happens even when the observed temperatures are lower than the thresholds because of relative humidity, which is a measure of the moisture levels in the atmosphere.   The combined impact of temperature and relative humidity can be captured by calculating the wet bulb temperature or heat index of a place. This takes into account both the variables and gives the actual felt temperature.   Wet bulb temperature is the lowest temperature to which air can be cooled by the evaporation of water into the air at constant pressure. And this evaporation is constantly happening from the skin through sweating, which helps humans cool down when there is excessive heat.   But if there is higher moisture in the atmosphere, this cooling down takes place at a much slower pace or stops completely. At such a point, the temperature of the human body starts increasing, leading to heat stroke and death.   Internationally, the agreed upon safe limit of wet bulb temperature is below 30°C and highest limit is 35°C, above which the possibility of human death becomes almost certain. Between 30°C and 35°C, the human body undergoes hyperthermia, in which the body temperature increases leading to discomfort and multiple impacts on various organs including the brain and the heart.   Around mid-day on March 28, Sholapur in Maharashtra recorded a maximum temperature of 40°C and relative humidity of 53 per cent. This translates to a wet bulb temperature of 31.54°C.   Similarly, Jalgaon recorded a maximum temperature of 46.8°C and relative humidity of 29 per cent, which translates to a wet bulb temperature of 30.72°C.   Currently, this is not captured in the IMD definition of a heatwave as the weather agency does not calculate wet bulb temperature of a place, though there would be declaration of heatwave conditions for the Jalgaon region which falls under Madhya Maharashtra subdivision as its temperature exceeded 45°C.   The IMD has come up with two new terminologies for heat stress experienced by the place — ‘warm night conditions’ and ‘hot humid weather’. In its statement dated March 28, it has indicated that ‘warm night conditions’ prevailed in isolated pockets over north Gujarat, Marathwada and Madhya Maharashtra subdivisions, though it has not defined what it means by ‘warm night conditions’.   In its forecast for the next few days, the weather agency has also predicted that warm night conditions would prevail over Gujarat, Marathwada and Madhya Maharashtra on March 28 and March 29.   IMD has also predicted hot and humid weather for the Saurashtra and Kutch regions of Gujarat on March 28 and March 29 and for Rayalaseema, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Karaikal, Kerala and Mahe between March 28 and April 1. But what is meant by ‘hot and humid weather’ is not clearly defined by IMD.   Even the thresholds of 30°C and 35°C are not exactly accurate. There have to be separate thresholds for tropical countries and these need to be continuously monitored and humid heat alerts generated for the impacted population.   In a research paper published in the Journal of Applied Physiology of the American Physiological Society in December 2021, scientists had found that the wet bulb temperature threshold of 35°C cannot be applied to human adaptability across all climatic conditions. In high humidity conditions, that threshold could be well below 35°C. This was the first study with empirical evidence that evaluated the impact of wet bulb temperature on human health.   This means that there may be humid heatwaves close to the human survivability threshold of heat stress already occurring in India and they are not being monitored. More importantly, the people being impacted are not being informed about the occurrence of such conditions.   http://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/climate-change/indians-may-already-be-experiencing-temperatures-close-to-limits-of-human-survivability-without-even-being-aware-95278   Mar. 2024   Climate change made west Africa’s ‘dangerous humid heatwave’ 10 times more likely.   The “dangerous humid heat” that engulfed western Africa in mid-February was made 10 times more likely by human-caused climate change, a new rapid attribution study finds.   Throughout February, western Africa was hit by unusually intense heat. Temperatures exceeded 40C in some regions, prompting the Ghanaian and Nigerian meteorological services to issue heat warnings.   The World Weather Attribution (WWA) service have analysed the region’s “heat index” – a measure that incorporates both temperature and humidity, to reflect the physiological impacts of the extreme conditions.   While the average air temperatures in west Africa reached 36C over 11-15 February, the heat index for the same period was about 50C, according to the study.   The study authors find that climate change made the heatwave 10 times more likely and 4C hotter. They warn that if global warming reaches 2C above pre-industrial temperatures, “similar events will occur about once every two years and will become a further 1.2-3.4C hotter”.   There was “very limited” data available on the impacts of this heatwave across west Africa, the study notes. However, the authors told a press briefing that heat is a “silent killer” and that lack of reported impacts does not mean the heatwave was not dangerous.   The report says that “to reduce heat-related morbidity and mortality in southern west Africa, there is an urgent need for improved monitoring and research on the impacts and risks associated with heatwaves”.   Early heatwave   Countries across west Africa have been sweltering under unseasonably hot temperatures for weeks. The Nigerian Meteorological Agency issued a warning on 13 February after air temperatures hit 41C in the north of the country, stating that the heat could cause conditions including fainting, heat rash, “weakness of the body” and respiratory issues. The agency advised people to stay hydrated, seek shade and stay indoors as much as possible between midday and 4pm.   “Experts warn that the extreme temperatures, amid the epileptic power supply, could trigger diseases, threaten livestock, and lead to death,” the Nigerian newspaper Punch said, reporting on the heat warning.   The WWA adds that, across Nigeria, “doctors reported an increase in patients presenting for heat-related illness” and “people complained of poor sleep due to hot nights”.   The Ghanaian Meteorological Agency released an “urgent public service announcement” on 20 February, advising precautionary measures such as staying hydrated and avoiding direct sun exposure.   As the month progressed, hundreds of regional and national temperature records across the region were broken, including hottest February nights in Ghana, Benin and Togo.   Extreme heat is particularly dangerous when combined with high humidity. When it is hot, the human body produces sweat to cool itself down. However, as humidity increases, sweating becomes less effective.   To assess the severity of the hot and humid conditions, the study authors analysed the “heat index”. This measure “combines temperature and humidity to reflect how it feels to the human body”, Dr Izidine Pinto – a researcher at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute and co-author on the study – explained to a press briefing.   The study says: “While the average air temperature in west Africa was above 36C, the heat index for the same period was about 50C, reflecting how a combination of humidity and high temperatures caused dangerous conditions.”   The authors focus on a region of southern west Africa where the heat was the most extreme, including Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and small parts of Guinea and Cameroon.   In this study, the authors investigate the impact of climate change on the maximum five-day heat index in southern west Africa. They find that global warming made the west African heatwave 4C hotter.   They add that if global warming reaches 2C above pre-industrial temperatures, similar events could become a further 1.3-3.4C hotter. The authors also calculate that climate change made the heatwave 10 times more likely to occur, adding that similar events could occur every other year in a 2C world.   West Africa was not the only region to experience record-breaking heat in February 2024.   February 2024 was the world’s hottest February on record, and countries across southern Africa – including Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe – saw temperatures of 4-5C above the February average.   Africa’s record-breaking heat continued into March. In Johannesburg, South Africa’s largest city, many residents faced several weeks without water. “Authorities in Johannesburg, South Africa’s commercial hub, have blamed the ongoing heatwave for the lack of water in some parts of the city for several weeks,” Daily News reported on 13 March.   On 18 March, the health and education ministries of South Sudan closed its schools, after weather services projected an extreme two-week heatwave with temperatures of up to 45C. Parents were advised to keep all children indoors, and ministries warned that any school found open during the warning period would have its registration withdrawn.   Over March 18-19, at least five countries in Africa, including South Africa and South Sudan, reported record-breaking temperatures.   The WWA study says that while the heatwave “potentially affected millions”, there is “very limited” data available about its impacts. As such, it says that very few heat-related impacts were reported by the media and government organisations.   “This, of course, does not mean there are no impacts,” said Maja Vahlberg from the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, who is a co-author on the study. In fact, Vahlberg told a press briefing that early-season heatwaves are generally “more impactful than heatwaves in the hot season” because “the human body has to very rapidly adjust to extreme temperatures”.   Heatwaves are a “silent killer”, Pinto told the press briefing, warning that “you only see the impacts later”.   The lack of reporting on the impacts of the heatwave “reflects the need to improve awareness of dangerous heat and detection of heat impacts”, the study says.   http://www.unicef.org/zimbabwe/press-releases/rising-heat-drought-and-disease-climate-crisis-poses-grave-risks-children-eastern http://reliefweb.int/report/angola/humanitarian-impact-el-nino-southern-africa-key-messages-march-2024   Mar. 2024   Climate adaptation becomes less effective as the world warms. (CarbonBrief)   With global temperatures over the past decade around 1.2C warmer than pre-industrial levels, the impacts already urgently demand adaptation investments to avoid mounting losses.   However, research suggests that existing limits and barriers to adaptation could take decades to overcome, particularly in vulnerable countries. And while adaptation measures are gradually being put in place, how might they be further affected by continued warming?   In our new study, published in One Earth, we investigate how the effectiveness of well-established adaptation options in relation to water changes as the world warms.   Our findings show that the effectiveness of water-related adaptation declines markedly once warming passes 1.5C above pre-industrial levels – from a central estimate (median) of 90% to 69%, 62% and 46% at 2C, 3C and 4C, respectively.   With the implementation of adaptation already lagging behind what is needed, our findings show that warming beyond 1.5C needs to be avoided for effective adaptation to be possible.   Measuring the effectiveness of adaptation   The latest assessment report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shows that current adaptation efforts are insufficient to cope with the increasing severity of warming-related impacts across the world.   This “adaptation gap” – the difference between what is needed to reduce impacts and what has been implemented – is growing, despite increasing adaptation efforts across all world regions.   Where adaptation has been documented, many benefits – such as economic gains, better educational outcomes or infrastructure improvements – have been observed. However, we still have very limited evidence and knowledge about how effective adaptation is in reducing climate risks – arguably the key purpose of adaptation.   This is, of course, an inherently difficult thing to measure, as it is not possible to calculate impacts that have been avoided because of adaptation.   Different ideas of how to measure adaptation effectiveness have been put forward. In a very narrow sense, the IPCC defines adaptation effectiveness as the extent to which an adaptation option is anticipated or observed to reduce climate-related risk, an approach we use in our study. More encompassing definitions of effectiveness include the multiple benefits adaptation can have on a broader set of outcomes, such as human well-being and equality.   A better understanding of the risk reduction potential of adaptation is crucial, as climate impacts will become more severe over the next decades. With limited resources to invest, it is essential that informed decisions can be made.   In our study, we look at a set of frequently used adaptation interventions in the water and agricultural sectors, which are central in current modelling approaches of future impacts.   We collated a set of published case studies distributed across all world regions. We grouped these options into nine different types of adaptation interventions.   For example, adaptation measures under “changes in cropping patterns and crop systems” include approaches such as shifting planting dates or substituting different crops. Measures related to “water and soil moisture conservation” include approaches such as reduced tilling (turning of the soil) or introducing mulching (covering topsoil with plant material).   Each case study assesses in detail how a particular option could be implemented according to specific local conditions and provides results on its potential to reduce climate risks.   In many studies, different combinations of measures or different specifications of one measure – for example, shifting planting dates by 10, 20 or 30 days – are tested. Where this leads to different levels of effectiveness, we focus on those specifications that show to be most effective in reducing risk.   Our findings suggest a concerning picture: adaptation options are effective in reducing risks in most assessed settings up to 1.5C of warming, but with increased warming, effectiveness declines across all options and regions.   http://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-climate-adaptation-becomes-less-effective-as-the-world-warms/   Feb. 2024   Amazon rainforest at the threshold: loss of forest worsens climate change. (PIK-Potsdam)   The Amazon rainforest could approach a tipping point, which could lead to a large-scale collapse with serious implications for the global climate system. A new Nature study by an international research team including scientists from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact research (PIK) reveals that up to 47 percent of the Amazonian forest is threatened and identifies climatic and land-use thresholds that should not be breached to keep the Amazon resilient.   “The Southeastern Amazon has already shifted from a carbon sink to a source –meaning that the current amount of human pressure is too high for the region to maintain its status as a rainforest over the long term. But the problem doesn't stop there. Since rainforests enrich the air with a lot of moisture which forms the basis of precipitation in the west and south of the continent, losing forest in one place can lead to losing forest in another in a self-propelling feedback loop or simply ‘tipping’”, states PIK scientist Boris Sakschewski, one of the authors of the study.   Up to 47 percent of the Amazon rainforest threatened by droughts and fires   Recent stress from increased temperatures, droughts, deforestation, and fires even in central and remote parts is weakening the Amazon's natural resilience mechanisms, pushing this system towards a critical threshold. The study finds that by the year 2050, 10-47 percent of the Amazonian forests will be threatened by increasing disturbances, risking to cross a tipping point.   Based on a large body of scientific results, the researchers identify five critical drivers connected to this tipping point: global warming, annual rainfall amounts, the intensity of rainfall seasonality, dry season length, and accumulated deforestation. For each of these drivers they suggest safe boundaries to keep the Amazon resilient.   “We found for example that for mean annual rainfall below 1000 mm per year, the Amazon rainforest cannot exist. However, below 1800 mm per year, abrupt transitions from rainforest to a Savanna-like vegetation become possible. This can be triggered by individual droughts or forest fires, which both have become more frequent and more severe in recent years”, states Da Nian, scientist at PIK and also author of the study.   The impact of forest loss does not stop at the borders of the Amazon. The moisture transported via Amazons´ so called “flying rivers” is an critical part of the South American Monsoon and hence essential for rainfall in vast parts of the continent. Moreover, the Amazon as a whole stores carbon equivalent to 15-20 years of current human CO2 emissions. Amazon forest loss therefore further drives global warming and intensifies the consequences.   "Greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation have to end"   The study also analyses examples of disturbed forests in various parts of the Amazon to understand what could happen to the ecosystem. In some cases, the forest may recover in the future, but still remain trapped in a degraded state, dominated by opportunistic plants, such as lianas or bamboos. In other cases, the forest does not recover anymore, and remains trapped in an open-canopy, flammable state. The expansion of open, flammable ecosystems throughout the core of the Amazon forest is particularly concerning because they can spread fires to adjacent forests.   “To maintain the Amazon forest within safe boundaries, local and global efforts must be combined. Deforestation and forest degradation have to end and restoration has to expand. Moreover, much more needs to be done to stop greenhouse-gas emissions worldwide”, concludes co-author Niklas Boers, professor of Earth System Modelling at the Technical University of Munich.   http://www.pik-potsdam.de/en/news/latest-news/amazon-rainforest-at-the-threshold-loss-of-forest-worsens-climate-change http://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-how-climate-change-could-reverse-gains-in-global-inequality/ http://www.pik-potsdam.de/en/news/latest-news/climate-change-risk-to-price-stability-higher-average-temperatures-increase-inflation-1 http://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-023-01173-x
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