A/HRC/41/39 48. There is little doubt that companies will play a role in providing and implementing solutions to climate change, but an overreliance on voluntary, private sector efforts would be a mistake. Climate change is a market failure and voluntary emissions reduction commitments will only go so far. As of May 2019, 554 companies had committed to reductions in greenhouse gas emissions as a part of the “Science Based Target initiative”, but the initiative is essentially toothless and relies entirely on self-reporting94. 49. Massive amounts of money will likely be funnelled to and through the private sector, including by international financial institutions and climate finance mechanisms, risking corporate giveaways or the sell-off of public goods. Corporate-friendly efforts to address emissions have created “perverse incentives” and rewarded manufacturers for producing greenhouse gases to, in turn, get paid to destroy them, or inspired “grifters and hustlers” to seek out communities in biologically rich countries to secure land rights with promises of carbon credit revenues.95 50. Climate change-related privatization also poses risks to the rights of people in poverty. In its climate implementation plan, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) aims to “scale climate investments” to 28 per cent of its financing by 2020 and “catalyse” $13 billion in private sector capital annually, including through public-private partnerships. 96 Between 2012 and 2016, the IFC closed 21 climate-related public-private partnership transactions, mobilizing $2.9 billion. 97 The IFC identifies public-private partnerships as a form of “climate-smart urban water infrastructure” and claims the private sector “will help ensure sustainable access to water services”. 98 The assumption that privatization will promote access to water in a time of growing water scarcity is profoundly troubling, given that privatization inevitably prioritizes profit and sidelines considerations such as equality and non-discrimination, marginalizing poor people and communities (see A/73/396). 51. Rather than helping the world adapt to climate change, privatizing basic services and social protection may be a form of maladaptation. When Hurricane Sandy wrought havoc in New York in 2012, stranding low-income and vulnerable New Yorkers without access to power and health care, the headquarters of Goldman Sachs was protected by tens of thousands of its own sandbags and power from its own generator. 99 Private white-glove firefighters have been dispatched to save the mansions of high-end insurance customers from wildfires.100 An overreliance 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. Climate finance 52. Hundreds of billions of dollars or more will need to be mobilized to avert human suffering and losses in the trillions. The commitment by developed countries to mobilize $100 billion a year by 2020 is “only a fraction of the finance needed to keep the average temperature increase to 2°C”. 101 It is also insufficient for adaptation needs, which in developing countries are expected to total between $140 and $300 billion annually by 2025–2030 102 and between $280 and $500 billion a year by 2050. 103 According to one analysis of existing figures, estimated assistance is lower than reported, grant-based 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 12 See https://sciencebasedtargets.org/about-the-science-based-targets-initiative/. See Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, pp. 219–220. International Finance Corporation (IFC), “IFC climate implementation plan” (April 2016), p. 1. Ibid., p. 23. IFC, Creating Markets for Climate Business (2017), p. 94. See Jessica Pressler, “Goldman has the power”, New York Magazine, 3 November 2012. Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, p. 52. Michael I. Westphal and others, “Getting to $100 billion: climate finance scenarios and projections to 2020”, World Resources Institute (May 2015), p. 5. Oxfam, “Climate finance shadow report 2018”, p. 6. See UNEP, “Cost of adapting to climate change could hit $500 billion per year by 2050”, 10 May 2016.