During its closing session on 25 August 2006, the UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human rights recommended to the recently established UN Human Rights Council the appointment of a Special Rapporteur on the legal implications of the disappearance of States and other territories for environmental reasons. The decision follows studies undertaken by the Working Group on Indigenous Populations and the Sub-Commission, which note that, as opposed to issues of State succession, the question of the extinction of a State, without there being a successor, is unprecedented. Questions related to the forced relocation of extinct States populations have been highlighted by the Sub-Commission, in States that will totally disappear, mostly island States, but also for States with a significant proportion of whose territory will disappear, leaving only such territory as will be unable to support the existing population.
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UN press release
(25 August 2006)
Time is running short for countries to decide the practical details of how the Paris Agreement will be brought to life, known as the Paris “rulebook”.
The world risks crossing the point of no return on climate change, with disastrous consequences for people across the planet and the natural systems that sustain them, the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned on Monday, calling for more leadership and greater ambition for climate action, to reverse course.
China’s vision of a global energy system overemphasises the benefits of connectivity. Planners and investors also have to consider the potential impacts on biodiversity and local community livelihoods from different power generation methods and find ways to prevent them.
A new report analyses how the transition to a low-carbon economy – and the minerals and metals required to make that shift – could affect fragility, conflict, and violence dynamics in mineral-rich states.