GENEVA: The UN rights chief warned on Monday that environmental threats are worsening conflicts around the world and will soon be the biggest challenge. human rights.
Michelle Bachelet said Climate change, Pollution And the damages to nature were already seriously affecting rights across the board and said countries were consistently failing to take the necessary action to stop the damage.
“The interconnected crises of pollution, climate change and biodiversity act as threat multipliers, amplifying conflicts, tensions and structural inequalities and putting people in increasingly vulnerable situations,” Bachelet said at the opening of the 48th session. force it.” united nations human rights council in Geneva.
“As these environmental threats intensify, they will become the greatest human rights challenge of our era.”
The former Chilean president said the threats were already “directly and seriously affecting a wide range of rights, including the rights to adequate food, water, education, housing, health, development and even life”. Huh”.
He said environmental damage usually hurts the poorest people and nations the most, as they often have the least capacity to respond.
Bachelet said fires in Siberia and California and floods in China, Germany and China in recent months have cited “extreme and life-threatening climate events”. Turkey.
He also said that the drought is potentially forcing millions of people into misery, hunger and displacement.
Bachelet said that addressing the environmental crisis was “a human imperative, a human rights imperative, a peace-building imperative and a development imperative. It is also possible.”
He said spending may focus on eco-friendly projects to revive economies in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, but “this is a change that is unfortunately not being done consistently and vigorously”.
He also said that countries have “consistently failed to fund and implement” commitments made under the Paris climate agreement.
“We must set the bar high – in fact, our shared future depends on it,” the UN rights chief said.
Bachelet said his office would push for more ambitious, rights-based commitments at the 12-day COP26 climate talks in Glasgow, which is set to begin on October 31.
Bachelet said that in many areas, environmental human rights defenders were bullied, harassed and killed, often with outright punishment.
He added that the economic change triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic has clearly led to increased exploitation of mineral resources, forests and land, particularly with indigenous peoples at risk.
“In Brazil, I am concerned about the recent attacks by illegal miners against the Yanomami and Munduruku people. heroine,” He said.
In her initial global update, Bachelet touched on human rights situations in several countries, including Chad, the Central African Republic, Haiti, India, Mali and Tunisia.
On China, it said its years-long efforts to seek “meaningful access” to Xinjiang had made no progress.
“In the meantime, my office is finalizing its assessment of available information on allegations of serious human rights violations in that region, with a view to making it public,” she said.
Rights groups believe that at least one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim minorities are imprisoned in camps in the Northwest Territories, where China has also been accused of forcibly sterilizing women and employing forced labor. has gone.
Beijing has strongly denied the allegations, saying training programmes, action plans and better education have helped to eliminate extremism in the region.
Michelle Bachelet said Climate change, Pollution And the damages to nature were already seriously affecting rights across the board and said countries were consistently failing to take the necessary action to stop the damage.
“The interconnected crises of pollution, climate change and biodiversity act as threat multipliers, amplifying conflicts, tensions and structural inequalities and putting people in increasingly vulnerable situations,” Bachelet said at the opening of the 48th session. force it.” united nations human rights council in Geneva.
“As these environmental threats intensify, they will become the greatest human rights challenge of our era.”
The former Chilean president said the threats were already “directly and seriously affecting a wide range of rights, including the rights to adequate food, water, education, housing, health, development and even life”. Huh”.
He said environmental damage usually hurts the poorest people and nations the most, as they often have the least capacity to respond.
Bachelet said fires in Siberia and California and floods in China, Germany and China in recent months have cited “extreme and life-threatening climate events”. Turkey.
He also said that the drought is potentially forcing millions of people into misery, hunger and displacement.
Bachelet said that addressing the environmental crisis was “a human imperative, a human rights imperative, a peace-building imperative and a development imperative. It is also possible.”
He said spending may focus on eco-friendly projects to revive economies in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, but “this is a change that is unfortunately not being done consistently and vigorously”.
He also said that countries have “consistently failed to fund and implement” commitments made under the Paris climate agreement.
“We must set the bar high – in fact, our shared future depends on it,” the UN rights chief said.
Bachelet said his office would push for more ambitious, rights-based commitments at the 12-day COP26 climate talks in Glasgow, which is set to begin on October 31.
Bachelet said that in many areas, environmental human rights defenders were bullied, harassed and killed, often with outright punishment.
He added that the economic change triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic has clearly led to increased exploitation of mineral resources, forests and land, particularly with indigenous peoples at risk.
“In Brazil, I am concerned about the recent attacks by illegal miners against the Yanomami and Munduruku people. heroine,” He said.
In her initial global update, Bachelet touched on human rights situations in several countries, including Chad, the Central African Republic, Haiti, India, Mali and Tunisia.
On China, it said its years-long efforts to seek “meaningful access” to Xinjiang had made no progress.
“In the meantime, my office is finalizing its assessment of available information on allegations of serious human rights violations in that region, with a view to making it public,” she said.
Rights groups believe that at least one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim minorities are imprisoned in camps in the Northwest Territories, where China has also been accused of forcibly sterilizing women and employing forced labor. has gone.
Beijing has strongly denied the allegations, saying training programmes, action plans and better education have helped to eliminate extremism in the region.
.