In 'climate apartheid', rich will save themselves while poor suffer: UN

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The world is on course for “climate apartheid”, where the rich buy their way out of the worst effects of global warming while the poor bear the brunt, a UN human rights report said on Tuesday.
The report, submitted to the UN Human Rights Council by its special rapporteur on extreme poverty, Philip Alston, said business was supposed to play a vital role in coping with climate change, but could not be relied on to look after the poor.
“An over-reliance on the private sector could lead to a climate apartheid scenario in which the wealthy pay to escape overheating, hunger, and conflict, while the rest of the world is left to suffer,” he wrote.
He cited vulnerable New Yorkers being stranded without power or healthcare when Hurricane Sandy hit in 2012, while “the Goldman Sachs headquarters was protected by tens of thousands of its own sandbags and power from its generator”.
Relying exclusively on the private sector to protect against extreme weather and rising seas “would almost guarantee massive human rights violations, with the wealthy catered to and the poorest left behind”, he wrote.
“Even under the best-case scenario, hundreds of millions will face food insecurity, forced migration, disease, and death.”
His report criticized governments for doing little more than sending officials to conferences to make “sombre speeches”, even though scientists and climate activists have been ringing alarm bells since the 1970s.

 “Thirty years of conventions appear to have done very little. From Toronto to Noordwijk to Rio to Kyoto to Paris, the language has been remarkably similar as States continue to kick the can down the road,” Alston wrote.