A/HRC/41/39 and climate change is threatening food production and posing dire economic and social threats.12 5. The most widespread scientific benchmark for measuring global warming is the rise in temperature relative to pre-industrial levels, already 1°C.13 The 2015 Paris Agreement aims to ensure no higher than a 2°C rise by 2100 and endeavours to limit it to 1.5°C, but even those increases would be catastrophic for many people.14 6. A rise of only 1.5°C rather than 2°C could mean reducing the number of people vulnerable to climate-related risks by up to 457 million; 10 million fewer people exposed to the risk of sea level rise; reducing exposure to floods, droughts, and forest fires; limiting damage to ecosystems and reductions in food and livestock; cutting the number of people exposed to water scarcity by half; and up to 190 million fewer premature deaths over the century.15 7. However, the scale of change required to limit warming to 1.5°C is historically unprecedented and could only be achieved through “societal transformation” and ambitious emissions reduction measures.16 Even 1.5°C of warming – an unrealistic, best-case scenario – will lead to extreme temperatures in many regions and leave disadvantaged populations with food insecurity, lost incomes and livelihoods, and worse health. 17 As many as 500 million people will be exposed and vulnerable to water stress, 36 million people could see lower crop yields and up to 4.5 billion people could be exposed to heat waves. 18 In all of these scenarios, the worst affected are the least well-off members of society. III. The impact on human rights, poverty and inequality A. Human rights 8. Climate change threatens the full enjoyment of a wide range of rights (A/HRC/31/52, paras. 23–32). Rapid action and adaptation can mitigate much of this, but only if done in a way that protects people in poverty from the worst effects. 19 9. According to the World Bank, at 2°C of warming, 100–400 million more people could be at risk of hunger and 1–2 billion more people may no longer have adequate water.20 Climate change could result in global crop yield losses of 30 per cent by 2080, even with adaptation measures. 21 Between 2030 and 2050, it is expected to cause approximately 250,000 additional deaths per year from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress. 22 With people in poverty largely uninsured, climate change will exacerbate health shocks that already push 100 million into poverty every year.23 10. People in poverty face a very real threat of losing their homes (see A/64/255). By 2050, climate change could displace 140 million people in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 See “Nature’s dangerous decline ‘unprecedented’; species extinction rates ‘accelerating’” 6 May 2019, available from www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/nature-declineunprecedented-report/. See Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “Special report: global warming of 1.5ºC, summary for policymakers” (2018). See Carbon Brief, “The impacts of climate change at 1.5°C, 2°C and beyond” (2018); and The Uninhabitable Earth, p. 13. See Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Special Report: Global Warming of 1.5ºC (2018), pp. 447, 452, 464. Ibid, p. 448. Ibid, p. 447. Ibid, p. 453. See World Bank, Shock Waves: Managing the Impacts of Climate Change on Poverty (2016), p. 17. See World Bank, World Development Report 2010: Development and Climate Change, p. 5. See World Bank, Shock Waves: Managing the Impacts of Climate Change on Poverty, pp. 4 and 6. See World Health Organization, Quantitative Risk Assessment of the Effects of Climate Change on Selected Causes of Death, 2030s and 2050s (2014). See World Bank, Shock Waves: Managing the Impacts of Climate Change on Poverty, p. 9. 3