To this date, environmental due diligence has hardly been integrated into legislations and it is not yet as concrete as UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights are in regard to human rights concerning responsibilities of corporations.
The Coronavirus pandemic has delayed the collection of evidence in the trial between the Peruvian farmer Saúl Luciano Lliuya and the German utility RWE at the Upper State Court in Hamm (Germany). Nevertheless, a new scientific study is providing credence to the legal claim: a prestigious team of researchers has used climate models to demonstrate that the risk of glacial lake flooding affecting the city of Huaraz is almost entirely due to anthropogenic climate change.
In addition to amplifying extreme weather events, climate change also causes or intensifies slow-onset processes such as sea-level rise, desertification, biodiversity loss or permafrost thaw. Both types of climate change impacts cause loss and damage, impede the enjoyment of human rights and can be drivers for human mobility. In contrast to extreme weather events, dealing with loss and damage caused by slow-onset processes in the context of climate change is still neglected, both at the national and international level.
The Global Climate Risk Index 2021 analyses to what extent countries and regions have been affected by impacts of weather-related loss events (storms, floods, heat waves etc.). The most recent data available — for 2019 and from 2000 to 2019 — were taken into account. The countries and territories affected most in 2019 were Mozambique, Zimbabwe as well as the Bahamas. For the period from 2000 to 2019 Puerto Rico, Myanmar and Haiti rank highest.
Bonn/Berlin (25th Jan. 2021). Vulnerable people in developing countries suffer most from extreme weather events like storms, floods and heat waves, while the impacts of climate change are visible around the globe.
