As part of a drastic overhaul to protect human rights and prevent a global disaster, a top UN expert is advocating for criminal sanctions against anyone spreading false information about the climate problem, as well as a complete prohibition on lobbying and advertising by the fossil fuel sector.
The UN special rapporteur on human rights and climate change, Elisa Morgera, is presenting her damning new report to the general assembly in Geneva on Monday. She contends that wealthy fossil fuel nations, including the US, UK, Canada, and Australia, are legally required by international law to phase out oil, gas, and coal completely by 2030 and to make amends to communities for the harms they have caused.
In addition to fossil fuel exploration, subsidies, investments, and phoney tech solutions that will bind future generations to polluting and increasingly expensive coal, oil, and gas, fracking, oil sands, and gas flaring should all be prohibited.
How do fossil fuels violate human rights obligations?
“Despite overwhelming evidence of the interlinked, intergenerational, severe and widespread human rights impacts of the fossil fuel life cycle … these countries have and are still accruing enormous profits from fossil fuels, and are still not taking decisive action,” said Morgera, professor of global environmental law at the University of Strathclyde.
“These countries are responsible for not having prevented the widespread human rights harm arising from climate change and other planetary crises we are facing – biodiversity loss, plastic pollution and economic inequalities – caused by fossil fuels extraction, use and waste.”
What legal duties do rich fossil fuel nations face?
The climate crisis and other environmental harms associated with the extraction, transportation, and use of fossil fuels for energy, fuel, plastics, and synthetic fertilisers have exacerbated the harms already experienced by island nations, Indigenous peoples, and other vulnerable communities, who have benefited the least from fossil fuels.
According to the report, there is ample evidence that the fossil fuel industry—which includes coal, oil, gas, fertilizers, and plastics—causes serious, extensive, and cumulative harm to nearly every human right, including the rights to life, self-determination, health, food, water, housing, education, information, and livelihood.
Morgera argues for the “defossilization” of our whole economy, which means that fossil fuels should be eliminated from all spheres of life, including politics, economics, food, media, technology, and knowledge. She contends that the shift to clean energy is insufficient to address the pervasive and growing damages brought about by fossil fuels.
Should governments ban fossil fuel lobbying and promotion
States are required by current international human rights legislation to educate their populations about the pervasive damages caused by fossil fuels and the fact that the best approach to combat the climate issue is to phase out the usage of coal, oil, and gas.
By spreading false information, attacking climate scientists and activists, and controlling democratic decision-making platforms like the yearly UN climate talks, the industry and its allies have systematically blocked access to this knowledge and meaningful climate action for 60 years. People also have a right to know about this.
“The fossil fuel playbook has undermined the protection of all human rights that are negatively impacted by climate change for over six decades,” said Morgera in the imperative of defossilizing our economies report.
States must outlaw lobbying and advertisements for fossil fuels, criminalise the fossil fuel industry, media, and advertising companies for spreading false information, and impose severe penalties for assaults on climate activists who are increasingly the targets of physical violence, cyberbullying, and malicious lawsuits.
Sea level rise, desertification, drought, melting glaciers, intense heat, floods, and other climate-related effects are posing an increasing threat to communities worldwide. In addition, every stage of the fossil fuel lifecycle is linked to biodiversity loss, water shortages, fatal air pollution, and the forced relocation of rural and Indigenous peoples.
