Climate Change and Human Rights

Thirty-three global banks have financed the fossil fuel industry to the tune of $1.9 trillion since adoption of the U.N. Paris Climate Agreement in 2016. JPMorgan was the fossil fuel industry's biggest banker overall, while Chinese banks financed more coal mining and power plants than others.

A scan of the past week's climate news suggests this may be the case.

by  David Waskow, Joe Thwaites and Yamide Dagnet, courtesy of the World Resources Institute Next month’s UN climate summit in Katowice, Poland (COP24) is seen by many as the most important climate negotiation since 2015, when 196 countries created a vision for a zero-carbon future by adopting the landmark Paris Agreement. This year’s summit is the critical juncture for countries to agree on the rules for turning this vision …

The potential rewards of making the transition to sustainable, circular economies are greater than originally estimated – including $26 trillion worth of economic benefits globally out to 2030. We're at a critical juncture regarding the forging a new, climate-conscious economy and avoiding the profound impacts of runaway global climate warming, however, according to the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate.

Impoverished communities around the globe lack access to essential amenities including heat, electricity and clean drinking water. Residents of rural communities are also in a similar situation. Electric companies have little incentive to add additional infrastructure to the electrical grid to provide these areas with electricity since it isn’t economical. Instead, residents are forced to use kerosene, diesel, candles and other antiquated technologies to …

Despite the advanced age we live in, one in every 10 people doesn’t have access to clean water. That adds up to more than 800 million people worldwide. Billions of people are forced to draw their drinking water from contaminated sources, and the impact has been truly disastrous. Most countries in Central Asia, South America, Africa and Eastern Europe have more than 500,000 deaths …

A strategy of protest Protests at the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota over the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) occurred in 2016, catching the attention of environmentalists and the news media. The Dakota Access Pipeline is a 1,168 miles mile pipeline that will carry crude oil from the Bakken oil fields from North Dakota to southern Illinois. It would carry up to 570,000 …