A few weeks ago the first ever human rights legal action seeking the accountability of the 50 big polluters was launched. Filed by Filipino typhoon survivors and several environmental organizations, it demands that the Philippines Human Rights Commission (CHR) investigate and acknowledge the complicity of 50 investor-owned fossil fuel companies in causing extreme weather events.
This comes from a consensus that the typhoons and catastrophic storms that annually batter the Philippines and many other small island nations, are exacerbated by climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels by distant and faceless energy companies.
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Coalitions of affected communities are developing jurisprudence that recognizes impacts of climate change as a breach of human rights. If successful, this recognition will lay the foundations for what is really required: attribution and action.
The petition was submitted on behalf of Greenpeace Southeast Asia, the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement and other local NGOs, with the support of the International Trade Union Confederation, Amnesty International, NGO legal experts and thousands of individuals. The broad coalition was put together because success in fighting climate change will only occur when organizations and individuals join hands across the globe to demand climate justice.
Climate impacts like extreme weather events hit the most vulnerable first; working people and the poor. With altered seasons and rising sea levels whole communities and nations are already suffering from corporate malfeasance. People are involved in every aspect of meeting this threat, from activists campaigning for action on climate to workers in new industries to workers in fossil fuel production.
