Fossil Fuel Ban Targeted By Disinformation

UN Expert Demands Criminal Penalties for Climate Disinformation and a Ban on Fossil Fuel Lobbying

A leading United Nations human rights specialist is calling on governments across the globe to establish criminal penalties for individuals who deliberately spread false information regarding the climate emergency. The specialist also advocates for a complete prohibition against lobbying efforts and promotional activities by companies in the fossil fuel business. These suggestions are elements within a broad strategy to safeguard basic human entitlements and avert a global disaster propelled by the changing climate. The recommendations represent a major pivot toward making corporations and their supporters accountable for their part in obstructing climate progress.

The Special Rapporteur's Mandate

Elisa Morgera is the UN's appointed expert on the connection between human entitlements and our changing climate, a role the Human Rights Council established in 2021. As a respected professor specializing in global environmental law, based at the University of Strathclyde, Morgera has substantial experience from her involvement with UN bodies and as an advisor to governments worldwide. Her work entails crafting international human rights benchmarks to confront the negative impacts of a changing climate and integrating these benchmarks into policymaking at national and global levels. This position puts her at the vanguard of outlining state responsibilities amidst rising climate effects.

A Scathing Report in Geneva

In a pivotal report delivered to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Morgera provided a stark evaluation of the effects on human entitlements originating from the fossil fuel business. The analysis, "The Imperative of Defossilizing Our Economies," is the first of its kind to concentrate solely on the rights infringements that arise from using fossil fuels. It systematically outlines the legal duties of countries to stop such damage, asserting that decades of industry obstruction and extensive harm necessitate immediate, profound change.

The Legal Duty of Wealthy Nations

The report strongly contends that affluent countries which produce fossil fuels, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, have an unambiguous legal responsibility under current international accords. This duty requires them to not only achieve a full discontinuation of gas, coal, and oil before the year 2030 but also to deliver compensation to communities damaged by their operations. This approach reframes the discussion from voluntary commitments to binding legal obligations founded on recognised human rights standards.

Banning Destructive Practices

To fulfil these legal responsibilities, Morgera’s analysis advocates for an instant prohibition of certain industry methods. These include hydraulic fracturing (fracking), the standard practice of flaring gas, and the extraction of bitumen from oil sands, all of which carry grave environmental and health repercussions. The document also calls for a stop to any new search for fossil fuels and related investments, stating that such ventures, coupled with deceptive technological proposals, will commit subsequent generations to a hazardous and expensive reliance on polluting energy.

Profits Over People

Morgera’s report denounces the ongoing gathering of huge profits by companies within the fossil fuel business in nations that neglect to implement meaningful climate policies. She highlights that this lack of action persists even with a vast body of proof showing the serious and extensive effects on human entitlements connected to the entire fossil fuel lifecycle. These nations, the analysis maintains, bear responsibility for failing to prevent the extensive damage to human entitlements that originates from the climate crisis and additional interconnected planetary emergencies they have worsened.

A Cascade of Planetary Crises

The document links the extraction and use of fossil fuels to a web of interlocked worldwide crises. Beyond the changing climate, it points to the sector as a major catalyst for biodiversity decline, pervasive toxic contamination, and widening economic disparities. This viewpoint underscores how the exclusive reliance on these energy sources has a compounding effect, aggravating numerous environmental and societal issues at once and hindering advancement on multiple sustainable development goals.

Vulnerable Communities Bear the Brunt

The gravest and escalating damages fall upon those who have reaped the fewest rewards from depending on fossil fuels. Island states confronting existential dangers from rising sea levels, Indigenous populations whose territories are exploited, and other susceptible populations face disproportionate effects. These groups suffer not only from the secondary consequences of a shifting climate but also from the immediate results of pollution, extraction, and transportation, which creates compounding layers of injustice.

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A Broad Attack on Basic Entitlements

The report documents the widespread harm created by the fossil fuel business affecting almost all recognized human entitlements. Extreme weather events and pollution threaten the entitlement to life itself. Access to healthcare, adequate nutrition, and safe water is compromised by environmental decay. Furthermore, entitlements to shelter and self-determination, along with education and stable livelihoods, are all weakened by the sector's activities and their larger climatic effects, amounting to a comprehensive attack on human dignity.

The Concept of 'Defossilization'

Morgera puts forward and advocates for the idea of "defossilization," a phrase that implies a much more profound transformation than merely moving to clean power sources. Defossilization calls for the complete elimination of fossil fuels throughout every economic area, which encompasses government, financial systems, media outlets, technology, and food production. The report states this comprehensive strategy is essential because the sector's reach is extensive, and its outputs, such as man-made plastics and fertilisers, lead to damage well beyond energy-related emissions.

The Fundamental Right to Information

Current global human rights accords create a binding duty for nations to educate their populations regarding the pervasive damage linked to fossil fuel use. The analysis emphasizes that the public has a right to understand that eliminating coal, gas, and oil represents the best strategy for combating the climate emergency. This obligation includes actively refuting false information and making sure public conversations are grounded in scientific fact, a duty many administrations have neglected.

Six Decades of Deception

For more than sixty years, the fossil fuel business and its supporters have methodically blocked the public from information and significant steps on climate. The report mentions a set of tactics employed by the fossil fuel business that includes circulating disinformation, launching assaults on climate researchers and campaigners, and taking control of policy-making forums, which extends to the yearly United Nations climate talks. This sustained campaign of misinformation has blocked effective protection of human rights from climate effects for many years.

Outlawing Greenwashing

To take apart this system of deceit, Morgera urges nations to make greenwashing a criminal act. This includes other kinds of false portrayals from corporations in the fossil fuel industry, alongside the media outlets and ad agencies that support them. This would entail prohibiting all advertising and lobbying from the fossil fuel business. Applying severe punishments for these activities would establish a legal disincentive against the corporate falsehoods that have obscured public comprehension and blocked political progress for decades.

Protecting Climate Defenders

The analysis highlights a concerning rise in dangers facing climate advocates. These people and organizations encounter hostile lawsuits, frequently known as Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs), which are intended to wear down their resources and intimidate them. They also face abuse online and attacks in person. Morgera is firm that governments must implement stringent punishments for these assaults, framing the safeguarding of environmental advocates as an essential part of maintaining both basic entitlements and democratic values.

The Growing Human Toll

Populations around the globe are dealing with intensifying dangers tied directly to the climate emergency. These dangers include seas encroaching on coastal areas, the steady growth of deserts, extended droughts, the disintegration of glaciers, and more severe heatwaves and floods. These effects are made worse by lethal air contamination, polluted water sources, the decline of biodiversity, and the involuntary relocation of populations. These issues are connected to all phases of fossil fuel activity.

Soaring Profits and Subsidies

As the damage increases, companies operating in the petrochemical and fossil fuel sectors reap huge financial gains. In the year 2023 alone, firms in the gas and oil business worldwide generated profits of $2.4 trillion, while coal producers took in $2.5 trillion. These earnings are supported by massive taxpayer-funded aid, which the International Monetary Fund calculated hit a record $7 trillion in 2022 after considering all direct and indirect costs. This financial backing sustains a system that fosters inequality and ecological ruin.

Redirecting Misguided Funds

Eliminating government support for fossil fuels by itself could cut worldwide emissions by as much as 10 percent before the year 2030. The report states that these huge sums, valued at more than $1.4 trillion in 2023 for nations in the OECD and elsewhere, ought to be reallocated. This change would assist affluent countries that produce fossil fuels in meeting their duties under law to help developing nations with their own transitions away from relying on fossil fuels and to finance solutions for the extensive damage that has been inflicted.

Funding Climate Reparations

The analysis describes multiple ways to secure funds for compensation and restoration. These include levying fines for harm created by corporations within the fossil fuel industry. Another mechanism involves confronting the sector's pervasive methods for eluding taxes. The report also suggests implementing taxes on wealth and unexpected profits. It further recommends requiring the industry to pay for climate adaptation measures and cover costs for losses and damages. This could be done using special 'climate superfunds' that impacted populations can access without intermediaries. This approach makes certain that the entities responsible for pollution bear the cost of the emergencies they created.

Land Justice and Remediation

A vital recommendation confronts the long-standing injustices experienced by groups whose land was taken for the purpose of fossil fuel activities. Morgera maintains that this land requires thorough decontamination, restoration, and it should be given back to Indigenous groups, individuals of African heritage, and farming communities should they wish for its return. In cases where its return is not practical or desired, they must receive equitable and just restitution, recognizing the aggression and displacement these groups have historically suffered.

A Vision for a Just Future

In the end, the report constructs a case based on human entitlements that calls for resolute and far-reaching political measures. Its proposals paint a picture of a future where the fundamental entitlements of every person are given priority over the financial gains and advantages that a limited number of people benefit from. Although some may write off these ideas as extreme or impractical, they are rooted in current legal structures and the scientific agreement on the need for swift climate measures to head off devastating hardship.

Redefining 'Realistic' Action

Morgera tackles the claim that a swift exit away from fossil fuels is not practical. She asserts that, ironically, shifting towards an economic model centered on renewable energy is now the more affordable, secure, and more beneficial choice for our communities. The considerable cost reductions from lower healthcare needs, reduced disaster response spending, and recovered tax income from corporations within the fossil fuel business makes this shift financially viable.

Overcoming the Industry's Narrative

The report finishes by stating that the move to a world after fossil fuels only appears extreme because the industry has been remarkably skilled at creating that perception. By revealing the long-running campaign of obstruction and detailing a straightforward, rights-centered path forward, the UN specialist seeks to break down this narrative. The objective is to give governments and civil society the power to work towards a future that puts human health, economic security, and environmental justice first.