RESOURCES
Water, especially freshwater, is fundamental to life. Access to water is a human right. It is fundamental to survival but also to a quality of life that is humane, healthy and sustainable. Water use should be understood not only in terms of urban water consumption or piped-in water services but also as it applies to farming communities and water-dependent communities.
Energy, or access to electricity, has now evolved as one of the essentials for a decent and modern standard of living. Our basic rights are now, in one way or another, connected to the quality of life brought about by electricity; it helps towards the progress, development and even realization of our rights to education, health, among other things.
People and communities throughout the global South need hundreds of billions of dollars each year to deal with the impacts of climate change, build resiliency and adopt alternative development pathways. The cost of compensation for past, present, and future damages due to climate change will only grow if, in addition, the necessary measures are not taken in the industrialized countries to make a just transition to equitable, non-fossil fuel based economies.
This briefer is drawn from the “Outcome of the work of the Ad Hoc Working Group on long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (unedited version)” released during the UNFCCC in Cancun.
A wealthy minority of the world’s countries and corporations are the principal cause of climate change; its adverse effects fall first and foremost on the majority that is poor. This basic and undeniable truth forms the foundation of!the global climate justice movement. – The climate debt primer
