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	Number of children without critical social protection increasing globally by UNICEF, International Labour Organization   Sep. 2023   Over 330 million children living in extreme poverty   One in every six children is forced to survive on less than $2.15 a day, according to a new report from the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).   UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said that the effects of the pandemic as well as conflict, climate change and economic shocks, have “stalled progress” on ending child poverty.   She called for redoubled efforts to ensure that all children have access to essential services, including education, nutrition, health care and social protection, while addressing the root causes of extreme poverty.   Globally, children comprise more than 50 per cent of the extreme poor, despite making up only a third of the world’s population.   The majority of children caught in extreme poverty reside in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Sub-Saharan Africa has the largest share of the world’s extremely poor children, with limited social protection measures contributing to the situation.   An estimated one in three children in countries affected by conflict live in extremely poor households. Children living in rural settings are also more affected by extreme poverty.   UNICEF warns that, at current rates of reduction, the Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs) of ending extreme child poverty by 2030, or SDG 1, will not be met.   “Seven years ago, the world made a promise to end extreme child poverty by 2030. We have made progress, showing that with the right investments and will, there is a way to lift millions of children out of what is often a vicious cycle of poverty,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.   “But compounding crises, from the impacts of COVID-19, conflict, climate change and economic shocks, have stalled progress, and left millions of children in extreme poverty. We cannot fail these children now. Ending child poverty is a policy choice. Efforts must be redoubled to ensure that all children have access to essential services, including education, nutrition, health care and social protection, while addressing the root causes of extreme poverty.”   * The international poverty lines were updated in 2022. The three poverty lines are:   $2.15 (extreme poverty), $3.65 (lower middle income) and $6.85 (upper middle income). Approximately 333 million children globally survive on less than US$2.15 a day, 829 million children subsist below a poverty line of US$3.65, and 1.43 billion children are living on less than US$6.85 a day.   http://www.unicef.org/press-releases/children-bearing-brunt-stalled-progress-extreme-poverty-reduction-worldwide http://www.ungeneva.org/en/news-media/news/2023/09/84928/over-330-million-children-worldwide-living-extreme-poverty   12 Sep. 2023   WFP analysis shows every 1% cut in food assistance pushes 400,000 people into emergency hunger   Today, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) issued a stark warning for global food security, estimating that every one percent cut in food assistance risks pushing more than 400,000 people towards the brink of starvation.   WFP is being forced to drastically cut rations in most of its operations as international humanitarian funding plummets. Experts at the agency estimate that, as a result, an additional 24 million people could slip into emergency hunger over the next 12 months – a 50 percent increase on the current level.   “With the number of people around the world facing starvation at record levels, we need to be scaling up life-saving assistance - not cutting it,” said Carl Skau, deputy executive director of the World Food Program. “If we don’t receive the support we need to avert further catastrophe, the world will undoubtedly see more conflict, more unrest, and more hunger. Either we fan the flames of global instability, or we work quickly to put out the fire.”   There are currently 345 million people facing acute food insecurity (IPC3+) worldwide, with 40 million of these in emergency levels of hunger (IPC4). These are people forced to take desperate measures to survive and are at risk of dying from malnutrition. WFP’s food assistance is a vital lifeline, often the only thing separating them from starvation.   WFP has been struggling to meet the global need for food assistance while facing a funding shortfall of over 60% this year - the highest in WFP’s 60-year history. And for the first time ever, WFP has seen contributions decreasing while needs steadily increase.   Experts at the agency fear that a humanitarian ‘doom loop’ is being triggered, where WFP is being forced to save only the starving, at the cost of the hungry. Massive reductions have already been implemented in almost half of WFP operations, including significant cuts in hotspots such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Jordan, Palestine, South Sudan, Somalia, and Syria.   The ripple effects of these cuts in life-saving aid will cause emergency levels of hunger to skyrocket even higher.   “There’s only one way out of this,” said Carl Skau. “We need to fund emergency operations to feed the hungry today while simultaneously investing in long-term solutions that address the root causes of hunger.”   http://news.un.org/en/story/2023/09/1140662 http://reliefweb.int/report/world/new-wfp-analysis-shows-every-1-cut-food-assistance-pushes-400000-people-emergency-hunger   # (Ending hunger and poverty is a policy choice. Today, there are 2,640 billionaires in the world with a combined net worth of $12.2 trillion dollars. World military expenditure rose by 3.7 per cent in real terms in 2022, to reach a record high of $2240 billion. The Tax Justice Network reports that in 2022 global tax abuse resulted in at least US$300 billion being lost to multinational corporations shifting profits into tax havens and at least US$170 billion lost to wealthy individuals hiding wealth offshore).   http://actionaid.org/news/2023/big-business-windfall-profits-rocket-obscene-1-trillion-year-amid-cost-living-crisis http://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/millionaires-economists-and-eminent-politicians-implore-g20-tax-super-rich http://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10546/621477/bp-survival-of-the-richest-160123-en.pdf http://taxjustice.net/reports/the-state-of-tax-justice-2023/   Number of children without critical social protection increasing globally, by UNICEF, International Labour Organization   The number of children without access to social protection is increasing year-on-year, leaving them at risk of poverty, hunger and discrimination, according to a new report released by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and UNICEF.   More than a billion reasons: The urgent need to build universal social protection for children warns that an additional 50 million children aged 0-15 missed out on a critical social protection provision – specifically, child benefits (paid in cash or tax credits) – between 2016 and 2020, driving up the total to 1.46 billion children under 15 globally.   According to the report, child and family benefit coverage rates fell or stagnated in every region in the world between 2016 and 2020, leaving no country on track to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal of achieving substantial social protection coverage by 2030. In Latin America and the Caribbean, for example, coverage fell significantly from approximately 51 per cent to 42 per cent.   In many other regions, coverage has stalled and remains low. In Central Asia and Southern Asia; Eastern Asia and South-eastern Asia; Sub-Saharan Africa; and Western Asia and Northern Africa coverage rates have been at around 21 per cent, 14 per cent, 11 per cent and 28 per cent respectively since 2016.   Failure to provide children with adequate social protection leaves them vulnerable to poverty, disease, missed education, and poor nutrition, and increases their risk of child marriage and child labour.   Globally, children are twice as likely as adults to live in extreme poverty – those struggling to survive on less than US$1.90 (PPP) a day – approximately 356 million children. A billion children also live in multidimensional poverty – meaning without access to education, health, housing, nutrition, sanitation, or water.   Children living in multidimensional poverty increased by 15 per cent during the COVID-19 pandemic, reversing previous progress in reducing child poverty and highlighting the urgent need for social protection.   “As families face increasing economic hardship, food insecurity, conflict, and climate-related disasters, universal child benefits can be a lifeline,” said Natalia Winder-Rossi, UNICEF Director of Social Policy and Social Protection.   “There is an urgent need to strengthen, expand and invest in child-friendly and shock-responsive social protection systems. This is essential to protect children from living in poverty and increase resilience particularly among the poorest households.”   “Strengthened efforts to ensure adequate investment in universal social protection for children, through universal child benefits to support families at all times, is the ethical and rational choice, and the one that paves the way to sustainable development and social justice,” said Shahra Razavi, Director of the Social Protection Department at the ILO.   Social protection is a universal human right and a precondition for a world free from poverty. It is also a vital foundation to help the world’s most vulnerable children fulfil their potential and increase their access to food, nutrition, education, and healthcare.   But worldwide, 1.77 billion children aged 0–18 lack access to a child or family cash benefit, a fundamental pillar of a social protection system. Children are twice as likely to live in extreme poverty as adults. 800 million children are currently subsisting below a poverty line of US$3.20 a day, and 1.3 billion children are living on less than US$5.50 a day.   The report emphasizes that all countries, irrespective of their level of development, have a choice: whether to pursue a “high-road” strategy of investment in reinforcing social protection systems, or a “low-road” strategy that misses out on necessary investments and will leave millions of children behind.   To reverse the negative trend, the ILO and UNICEF urge policymakers to take decisive steps to attain universal social protection for all children, including:   Investing in child benefits which offer a proven and cost-effective way to combat child poverty and ensure children thrive.   Providing a comprehensive range of child benefits through national social protection systems that also connect families to crucial health and social services, such as free or affordable high-quality childcare.   Building social protection systems that are rights-based, gender-responsive, inclusive, and shock responsive to address inequities and deliver better results for girls and women, migrant children, and children in child labour for example.   Securing sustainable financing for social protection systems by mobilizing domestic resources and increasing budget allocation for children.   Strengthening social protection for parents and caregivers by guaranteeing access to decent work and adequate benefits, including unemployment, sickness, maternity, disability, and pensions.   * The urgent need to build universal social protection for children; ILO–UNICEF joint report (136pp): http://uni.cf/41ReKpc   http://www.unicef.org/press-releases/number-children-without-critical-social-protection-increasing-globally http://www.unicef.org/documents/urgent-need-for-universal-social-protection http://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_869722/lang--en/index.htm http://news.un.org/en/story/2023/03/1134037 http://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/studies/ahrc5483-inequality-social-protection-and-right-development-study-expert Visit the related web page
	The world is not acting upon warnings over the climate crisis by WMO, NOAA, Columbia University, OHCHR, agencies   Jan. 2024   2023 has been confirmed as the hottest year on record surpassing 2016, the previous hottest year, by a large margin, according to a new report released by the European Union Copernicus Climate Change Service. The data for this record goes back to 1850.   Samantha Burgess, deputy director of Copernicus, said 2023 was an exceptional year "with climate records tumbling like dominoes."   July and August were Earth's two warmest months on record along with the Northern Hemisphere's summer season reaching new highs. December 2023 was the warmest December on record globally.   Analysis shows that 2023 was 1.48 degrees Celsius warmer than the 1850-1900 pre-industrial reference level with close to half of the days in 2023 surpassing the 1.5°C warming limit. Two days in November days that were more than 2°C warmer for the first time on record.   "Not only is 2023 the warmest year on record, it is also the first year with all days over 1°C warmer than the pre-industrial period. Temperatures during 2023 likely exceed those of any period in at least the last 100,000 years," Burgess said.   Since June, every month has been the world's hottest on record compared with the corresponding month in previous years. More than 200 days saw a new daily global temperature record for the time of year, according to Copernicus Climate Change Service data.   The world’s CO2 emissions from burning coal, oil and gas hit record levels in 2023. The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere rose to the highest level recorded at 419 parts per million, C3S said.   "These are more than just statistics," says Prof Petteri Taalas, the Secretary General of the World Meteorological Organization between 2016 and 2023. "Extreme weather is destroying lives and livelihoods on a daily basis."   Countries agreed in the 2015 Paris Agreement to try to prevent global warming surpassing 1.5C, to avoid its most severe consequences.   C3S said that temperatures exceeding the level on nearly half of the days of 2023 sets "a dire precedent".   Copernicus predicts that the 12-month period ending in January or February 2024 would "exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level".   “The extremes we have observed over the last few months provide a dramatic testimony of how far we now are from the climate in which our civilization developed,” said Carlo Buontempo, director of Copernicus’ Climate Change Service. “This has profound consequences for the Paris Agreement and all human endeavors. If we want to manage climate risk we need to urgently decarbonize our economy.”   The global average temperature for 2023 was 14.98 degrees Celsius. The previous record was 14.81 degrees Celsius set in 2016.   According to the CCCS, the annual average air temperatures were the warmest on record, or close to the warmest, over the majority of ocean basins and continents around the world. Unprecedented high sea surface temperature were a critical driver of the extreme air temperature in 2023, according to the CCCS. Antarctic sea ice crashed to record lows.   2023 saw massive fires in Canada, extreme droughts in the Horn of Africa or the Middle East, unprecedented summer heatwaves in Europe, the United States and China, along with record winter warmth in Australia and South America.   "Such events will continue to get worse until we transition away from fossil fuels and reach net-zero emissions," says University of Reading climate change professor Ed Hawkins. "We will continue to suffer the consequences of our inactions today for generations."   Prof Brian Hoskins, at Imperial College London, said: “2023 has given us a taste of the climate extremes that occur near the Paris targets. It should shake the complacency displayed in the actions by most governments around the world.”   "We desperately need to rapidly cut fossil fuel use and reach net-zero to preserve the liveable climate that we all depend on," said John Marsham, atmospheric science professor at the University of Leeds.   Each fraction of temperature increase exacerbates extreme and destructive weather disasters.   http://climate.copernicus.eu/copernicus-2023-hottest-year-record http://climate.copernicus.eu/global-climate-highlights-2023 http://climate.copernicus.eu/weve-lost-19-years-battle-against-global-warming-paris-agreement http://wmo.int/media/news/wmo-confirms-2023-smashes-global-temperature-record http://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-analysis-confirms-2023-as-warmest-year-on-record/   Nov. 2023   2023 on track to be the hottest year on record, report European climate scientists.   “We can say with near certainty that 2023 will be the warmest year on record, and is currently 1.43C above the pre-industrial average,” says Samantha Burgess, the deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service. “The sense of urgency for ambitious climate action has never been higher.”   Copernicus found the average global mean temperature between January and October 2023 was the highest on record. When data from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is considered, "then we can say that this is the warmest year for the last 125,000 years," she told Reuters news agency.   The Copernicus Climate Change Service found that October was the hottest ever documented, with an average surface air temperature of 15.3°C—0.85°C higher than the 1991-2020 average and 0.40°C above the previous record from 2019.   October also set a new record for average sea surface temperature and "marked the sixth consecutive month that Antarctic sea ice extent remained at record low levels for the time of year."   Copernicus Climate Change Service director Carlo Buontempo told Bloomberg news service that "the difference between the temperature of this October and the average temperature of October in the last 30 years is extraordinarily large, much larger than the anomaly of any of the other years that were record-breaking."   "We are already in uncharted territory," he warned. "We are already experiencing a climate that we have never seen in our life or in our history."   Deputy director Samantha Burgess noted that the "exceptional temperature anomalies" of last month follow "four months of global temperature records being obliterated."   Responding to the report, Imperial College London climatologist Friederike Otto stressed that "I think the most important thing to highlight here is that this is not just another record or another big number. The fact that we're seeing this record hot year means record human suffering."   "Within this year, extreme heatwaves and droughts made much worse by these extreme temperatures have caused thousands of deaths, people losing their livelihoods, being displaced, etc. These are the records that matter," Otto added. "That is why the Paris agreement is a human rights treaty, and not keeping to the goals in it is violating human rights on a vast scale."   Sep. 2023   Earth had hottest three-month period on record, with unprecedented sea surface temperatures and much extreme weather. (World Meteorological Organization, agencies)   Earth just had its hottest three months on record, according to the European Union-funded Copernicus Climate Change Service. Global sea surface temperatures are at unprecedented highs for the third consecutive month and Antarctic sea ice extent remains at a record low for the time of year.   It was the hottest August on record – by a large margin – and the second hottest ever month after July 2023, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service ERA 5 dataset. August as a whole is estimated to have been around 1.5°C warmer than the preindustrial average for 1850-1900, according to C3S.   The year so far (January to August) is the second warmest on record behind 2016, when there was a powerful warming El Nino event.   August as a whole saw the highest global monthly average sea surface temperatures on record across all months, at 20.98°C. Temperatures exceeded the previous record (March 2016) every single day in August.   Antarctic sea ice extent remained at a record low level for the time of year, with a monthly value 12% below average, by far the largest negative anomaly for August since satellite observations began in the late 1970s. Arctic sea ice extent was 10% below average, but well above the record minimum of August 2012.   WMO consolidates data from C3S and five other international datasets for its climate monitoring activities and its State of the Climate reports.   A report in May from WMO and the UK's Met Office predicted that there is a 98% likelihood that at least one of the next five years will be the warmest on record and a 66% chance of temporarily exceeding 1.5°C above the 1850-1900 average for at least one of the five years. This does not mean that we will permanently exceed the 1.5°C level specified in the Paris Agreement which refers to long-term warming over many years.   “Our planet has just endured a season of simmering -- the hottest summer on record. Climate breakdown has begun. Scientists have long warned what our fossil fuel addiction will unleash. Surging temperatures demand a surge in action. Leaders must turn up the heat now for climate solutions. We can still avoid the worst of climate chaos – and we don’t have a moment to lose,“ said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.   “The northern hemisphere just had a summer of extremes – with repeated heatwaves fuelling devastating wildfires, harming health, disrupting daily lives and wreaking a lasting toll on the environment. In the southern hemisphere Antarctic sea ice extent was literally off the charts, and the global sea surface temperature was once again at a new record. It is worth noting that this is happening before we see the full warming impact of the El Niño event, which typically plays out in the second year after it develops” says World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Prof. Petteri Taalas.   “Eight months into 2023, so far we are experiencing the second warmest year to date, only fractionally cooler than 2016, and August was estimated to be around 1.5°C warmer than pre-industrial levels. What we are observing, not only new extremes but the persistence of these record-breaking conditions, and the impacts these have on both people and planet, are a clear consequence of the warming of the climate system,” comments Carlo Buontempo, Director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service.   http://climate.copernicus.eu/copernicus-october-2023-exceptional-temperature-anomalies-2023-virtually-certain-be-warmest-year http://www.climatecentral.org/climate-matters/earths-hottest-12-month-streak-2023 http://www.climatecentral.org/report/the-hottest-12-month-stretch-in-recorded-history-2023 http://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/reporting-state-climate-2022   July 2023   Climate scientists warn the rate of global heating is accelerating.   The world is shifting towards a superheated climate not seen in the past 1 million years, prior to human existence, because “we are damned fools” for not acting upon warnings over the climate crisis, according to James Hansen, the US scientist who alerted the world to the greenhouse effect in the 1980s.   Hansen, whose testimony to the US Senate in 1988 is cited as the first high-profile revelation of global heating, warned in a statement with other scientists that the world was moving towards a “new climate frontier” with temperatures higher than at any point over the past million years, bringing impacts such as heatwaves, droughts and stronger storms.   The world has already warmed by about 1.2C since mass industrialization, causing a 20% chance of having the sort of extreme summer temperatures currently seen in many parts of the northern hemisphere, up from a 1% chance 50 years ago, Hansen said.   “There’s a lot more in the pipeline, unless we reduce the greenhouse gas amounts,” Hansen told the Guardian. “These superstorms are a taste of the storms of my grandchildren. We are headed wittingly into the new reality – we knew it was coming.”   Hansen was a Nasa climate scientist 30 years ago when he warned lawmakers of growing global heating and has since decried the lack of action to reduce planet-heating emissions in the decades since.   He said the record heatwaves that have roiled the US, Europe, China and elsewhere in recent weeks have heightened “a sense of disappointment that we scientists did not communicate more clearly and that we did not elect leaders capable of a more intelligent response”.   “It means we are damned fools,” Hansen said of humanity’s ponderous response to the climate crisis. “We have to taste it to believe it.”   This year looks likely to be the hottest ever recorded globally, with the summer already seeing the hottest June and hottest week ever reliably measured. Conversely, 2023 may in time be considered an average or even mild year, as temperatures continue to climb. “Things will get worse,” Hansen said.   “This does not mean that the extreme heat at a particular place this year will recur and grow each year. Weather fluctuations move things around. But the global average temperature will go up and the climate dice will be more and more loaded, including more extreme events.”   Hansen has argued in a new research paper, that the rate of global heating is accelerating, even when natural variations, such as the current El Nino climatic event that periodically raises temperatures, are accounted for. This is due to what he says is an “unprecedented” imbalance in the amount of energy coming into the planet from the sun versus the energy reflected away from Earth.   Global temperatures are undoubtably climbing due to the burning of fossil fuels. Scientists have estimated that the current surge in heating has already brought global temperatures to levels not seen on Earth since about 125,000 years ago, before the last ice age.   Matthew Huber, an expert in paleoclimatology at Purdue University said Hansen was “broadly correct” that the world will be plunged into the sort of warmth not seen since 1-3 million years ago, a period of time called the Pliocene.   “That is a radically different world,” said Huber of an epoch in which sea levels were about 20 meters higher than now, which would today drown most coastal cities. “We are pushing temperatures up to Pliocene levels, which is outside the realm of human experience; it’s such a massive change that most things on Earth haven’t had to deal with it,” Huber said.   Previous shifts in the climate, spurred by greenhouse gases or changes in the Earth’s orbit, have caused changes to unfold over thousands of years. But as heatwaves impact populations unused to extreme temperatures, forests burn and marine life struggles to cope with soaring ocean heat, the current upward spike is occurring at a pace not seen since the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.   “It’s not just the magnitude of change, it’s the rate of change that’s an issue,” says Ellen Thomas, a Yale University scientist who studies climate over geologic timescales. “Almost all my colleagues have said that, in hindsight, we have underestimated the consequences. Things are moving faster than we thought, which is not good.”   This summer’s searing heat has fully revealed to the world a message that Hansen attempted to deliver 35 years ago and scientists have strived to convey since, according to Huber. “We have been staring this in the face as scientists for decades, but now the world is going through that same process, which is like the five stages of grief,” he said. “It’s painful to watch people go through it.   “But we can’t simply give up because the situation is dire,” Huber added. “We need to say ‘Here is where we need to invest and make changes and innovate’ and not give up. We can’t just write off billions of people.”   At a press conference Gavin Schmidt, the director of Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told reporters July will likely be Earth’s hottest month in hundreds if not thousands of years, as a persistent heatwave baked large areas of the US south. Canadian wildfire smoke has also choked US cities. And tens of millions of people have been placed under heat advisories, with areas across the US south and west breaking temperature records.   “We are seeing unprecedented changes all over the world,” Schmidt said. Though the changes may feel shocking, they are “not a surprise” to scientists, he added. “There has been a decade-on-decade increase in temperatures throughout the last four decades.”   Earth saw its hottest June on record, according to Nasa’s global temperature analysis. All this heat, Schmidt said, is “certainly increasing the chances” that 2023 will be the hottest year on record. Scientists anticipate that 2024 will be even hotter than 2023, as an El Nino weather pattern unfolds.   Climate experts at the Nasa press briefing raised alarm about the changes Earth is experiencing and said they are directly linked to greenhouse gas emissions. Nasa chief scientist and senior climate adviser Kate Calvin said, “What we know from science is that human activity and principally greenhouse gas emissions are unavoidably causing the warming that we’re seeing on our planet”. “This is impacting people and ecosystems around the world.”   The former head of the UN climate science body the IPCC has told the BBC he believes the target to limit global warming to 1.5C will be missed. Professor Bob Watson, former head of the UN climate body, told the BBC's Today programme he was "pessimistic". His warning comes amidst a summer of extreme heat for Europe, China and the US.   The world agreed to try to limit the temperature increase due to climate change to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels at a UN conference in Paris in 2015. That target has become the centrepiece of global efforts to tackle climate change. The UN says passing the limit will expose millions more people to potentially devastating climate events.   Climate scientists have been warning governments for years that they are not cutting their countries' emissions quickly enough to keep within this target.   Professor Bob Watson is currently Emeritus Professor of the UK's Tyndall Centre for Climate Research - having previously worked at the UN, Nasa, UK's Department of Environment and the US White House - and is perhaps one of the foremost climate scientists in the world.   In the interview aired with the BBC he said: "I think most people fear that if we give up on the 1.5 [Celsius limit] which I do not believe we will achieve, in fact I'm very pessimistic about achieving even 2C, that if we allow the target to become looser and looser, higher and higher, governments will do even less in the future."   His comments were supported by Nicholas Stern, Chairman of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, during an interview with the BBC. He said: "I think 1.5 is probably out of reach even if we accelerate quickly now".   Based on current government commitments to cutting greenhouse gas emissions, Climate Action Tracker predicts that global temperatures will rise to at least 2.7C.   Prof Sir Bob Watson said that the world was struggling to prevent temperature rises as we are not reducing emissions fast enough.   "The big issue is we need to reduce greenhouse gases now to even be on the pathway to be close to 1.5C or 2C. We need to reduce current emissions by at least 50% by 2030. The trouble is the emissions are still going up, they are not going down," he said.   Prof. Watson said setting targets was not enough and countries needed to back these up with action: "We need governments to start to act sensibly now and reduce emissions, but many governments don't have the policies in place, don't have the financing in place to reach those goals."   http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2023/ClimateDice.13July2023.pdf http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-66256101 http://www.worldweatherattribution.org/extreme-heat-in-north-america-europe-and-china-in-july-2023-made-much-more-likely-by-climate-change/ http://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-38906-7 http://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-023-01132-6   July 2023   The adverse impact of climate change on the full realization of the right to food, by Volker Turk - UN High Commissioner for Human Rights   The adverse impact of climate change on the full realization of the right to food, statement by Volker Turk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to the 53rd session of the UN Human Rights Council.   We know that our environment is burning. It's melting. It's flooding. It's depleting. It's drying. It's dying. The predictable, regular swing of the seasons is wildly off course.   Cyclones of unprecedented proportions whip up lethal storm surges. A heatwave pulsates across the ocean, threatening marine life, fisheries and coral. And inland seas and lakes, which have nourished generation upon generation of farmers and fishers, are turning into dust bowls. I saw that earlier this year near the Aral Sea when I visited Uzbekistan.   Yet still we are not acting with the urgency and determination that is required. Leaders perform the choreography of deciding to act and promising to act and then... get stuck in the short term.   On our current course, the average temperature increase by the end of this century is predicted to be 3° Celsius, and our ecosystems – our air, our food, our water, and human life itself – would be unrecognisable.   Vast territories would disappear under rising oceans, or become effectively uninhabitable, due to heat and lack of water. Last August, the temperature in Basrah, in southern Iraq, rose to 52.6°C. I will be travelling to Iraq later this year, in part to highlight the risks of this dystopian future.   Our topic for discussion is the right to food, and clearly this is comprehensively threatened by climate change.   Extreme weather events, and both sudden and gradual disasters caused by climate change, wipe out crops, herds, fisheries and entire ecosystems. Their repetition makes it impossible for communities to rebuild and support themselves.   Globally, there has been a 134% increase in climate-fueled, flood-related disasters between 2000-2023.   More than 828 million people faced hunger in 2021. And climate change is projected to place at least 80 million more people at risk of hunger by the middle of this century – creating a truly terrifying scale of desperation and need.   Already, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, weather extremes related to climate change have damaged the productivity of all agricultural and fishery sectors, with negative consequences for people’s food security and livelihoods. Currently, this impact is worst for small-scale farmers, and for people in Africa below the Sahara; across Asia, in small island States, and in Central and South America.   As global heating accelerates, these repercussions will grow more widespread and more intense. No country will be spared. The worst hit will be people in countries where there is already food insecurity, and where protection systems are not sufficiently robust to respond effectively to climate shocks.   Often, these are countries that benefitted little from industrial development, and contributed next to nothing to the industrial processes which are killing our environment and violating rights.   If this is not a human rights issue, what is? We must not deliver this future of hunger and suffering to our children, and their children. And we don't have to.   We, the generation with the most powerful technological tools in history, have the capacity to change it. If we put an end to senseless subsidies to the fossil fuel industry, and start phasing out of fossil fuels.   If we make the upcoming climate conference COP28 the decisive game-changer that we so badly need. If courts around the world that are engaged in climate litigation cases hold businesses and Governments to account. If we shun the greenwashers and those who cast doubt on evidence and facts, out of their own greed.   If we rise above the forces of polarisation, and unify around the imperative of doing the utmost to address climate change, and as a result fulfil human rights.   If we transform international development and financing institutions into engines of climate action, so that the countries and people most affected gain access to climate financing.   If measures to uphold good governance are adopted, so that when financing becomes available, it brings support, and remedy, to the most affected people.   Then a just transition to a green economy – nationally, and globally – can take place. We can fulfil the Sustainable Development Goals. We can realise our universal right to food. And we can uphold our right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, as was adopted by the General Assembly last year.   We can. Because there is still time to act. But that time is now. We must not leave this for our children to fix – no matter how inspiring their activism. The people who must act – who have the responsibility to act – are our leaders, today. The world demands action, now.   http://www.ohchr.org/en/statements/2023/07/addressing-climate-change-now
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