The world faces “a climate apartheid” where the wealthy are better able to adjust to a hotter planet while the poor suffer the worst from climate change, a UN expert said recently.
In a new report, the United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, warned that “climate change threatens to undo the last 50 years of progress... in poverty reduction.”
Alston’s report, which will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council soon, cited previous research that climate change could leave 140 million across the developing world homeless by 2050.
“Perversely, while people in poverty are responsible for just a fraction of global emissions, they will bear the brunt of climate change, and have the least capacity to protect themselves,” Alston said in a statement.
