Right to Food Threatened by Climate Crisis - UN Human Rights Chief

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, attends at the Panel discussion on the death penalty, during the 52nd session of the Human Rights Council, on Feb. 28, 2023.

Africa News and AFP

The impact of the climate crisis is threatening the right to food, the UN human rights chief alerted on Monday (Jul. 3rd).

828 million people faced hunger in 2021. And the crisis is projected to place up to 80 million more at risk by the middle of this century," Volker Türk said during the 53rd session of the Human Rights Council.

"Our topic this morning 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."

In 2015, world leaders committed among other things to strengthening the global response to the threat of climate crisis.

However, financial pledges by developed nations have not been kept. In the fight to mitigate the consequences of the crisis, small polluters which are least developed nations, suffer an additional penalty.

"Often, these are countries that benefited 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?"

Speaking in Geneva, Volker Türk called for an end to subsidies to the fossil fuel industry to deliver a liveable future to the next generations.  

He added among other conditions making the upcoming "COP28 the decisive game-changer that [we] so badly need".  If a 7-point plan he presented during his address was fulfilled, he believed "a just transition to a green economy – nationally, and globally' –" could then "take place."