G20 leaders urged to 'substantially' increase assistance to vulnerable states to deliver climate justice
London, UK (PANA) - World leaders attending the G20 summit in New Delhi which starts on Saturday must substantially increase international assistance and provide debt relief to vulnerable states to help deliver urgently needed climate justice and avoid a potentially catastrophic failure to safeguard human rights, Amnesty International said on Friday.
Amnesty International is calling on G20 leaders to deliver on previous climate finance pledges they have so far failed to honour, and to adopt new commitments, including comprehensive relief for countries in debt distress.
The debt crisis threatens people’s rights to adequate food, clothing and housing, enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the climate crisis poses extreme threats to the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.
“The G20 is happening while the world teeters on a knife-edge. The climate crisis is inflicting immense harm on people while at the same time many climate-vulnerable states face a debt crisis. The human rights of billions of people are threatened. The cost of inaction will be catastrophic,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.
She added: “Soaring prices of staple foods, economic shocks, and the climate crisis pose unparalleled challenges that many countries are ill-equipped to face, including those that did little to create these global threats. The number of low imcome countries in debt distress has risen since the COVID-19 pandemic to 42, hampering their ability to safeguard people’s rights, especially because many face recurrent climate shocks.
“It is vital that the G20 acknowledges the magnitude and urgency of these crises and acts swiftly to stop the climate and debt disasters escalating.”
Amnesty International said the numbers of people in extreme poverty, living on less than US$2.15 a day, rose in 2021 for the first time since before the G20 began meeting in 1999.
Low-income countries are spending more on servicing debt as a proportion of their entire national income than at any point in at least the last 30 years.
The target of eradicating extreme poverty by 2030, one of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals agreed to in 2015, will almost certainly be missed, the human rights watchdog said.
It said the G20, which works closely with international financial institutions including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, can help change this by ensuring that debt relief processes are fair, robust and fast enough to effectively tackle countries facing multiple crises.
This includes being prepared to consider more debt cancellation as an option. Debt agreements led by the IMF and other multilateral lenders all too often include conditionalities which place additional burdens on the poor and vulnerable and lack the necessary human-rights framework that would help ensure a way out of onerous debt cycles.
"The G20 needs to support radical reform of the existing international financial architecture by shifting to a more inclusive system which represents the interests of debtor countries, particularly low-income states, as well as creditors," Ms. Callamard said.
Reform should accommodate the devastation of climate shocks; it is not appropriate for countries to fall further into debt as they experience recurrent extreme weather events driven by climate change to which they contributed little, she added.
Amnesty International called on the G20 to support drastic action to avert compounding climate disasters, notably by agreeing to the rapid phasing out of all fossil fuels.
Average global temperatures are rising fast and without ambitious action now, are set to far exceed the 1.5˚C increase over pre-industrial levels that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has indicated is crucial to protect humanity from the most devastating impacts of climate change.
Agnès Callamard said: “Rapidly phasing out all fossil fuels must be the global priority to avoid a climate catastrophe and further human rights abuses. The world is heading towards a climate disaster and the distress signals are obvious. People are suffering as ecosystems and biodiversity are being destroyed.”
Amnesty Interntional said this year severe drought has gripped the Horn of Africa, much of Asia has endured record temperatures, enormous wildfires have raged across swathes of North America and Europe, July was the hottest month ever recorded globally, ocean temperatures are at unprecedented highs, the polar ice caps are disappearing, and record rainfall has caused deadly flooding in Europe and China.
"Lower income countries cannot reasonably be expected to meet commitments to stop using fossil fuels if wealthier countries continue to evade their own promises and obligations while failing to provide sufficient climate finance and debt relief to more vulnerable states."
It said wealthier nations must deliver, and substantially increase, pledges to provide at least US$100 billion annually, to help states mitigate and adapt to climate change.
-0- PANA MA 8Sept2023
