Australia’s credibility on human rights blighted by laws targeting climate protesters and jailing children, report says
The Guardian, 12 Jan 2023
Human Rights Watch called on Australia to address its own “alarming deficiencies” when the organisation on Thursday published its annual reports on the performance of nearly 100 countries. It specifically raised alarm about New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania introducing “new laws targeting peaceful climate and environmental protesters with disproportionate punishments and excessive bail conditions”.
Police start clearing German village condemned for coal mine
AP News, 12 Jan 2023
Police in riot gear began evicting climate activists Wednesday from a condemned village in western Germany that is due to be demolished for the expansion of a coal mine. Some stones and fireworks were thrown as officers entered the tiny hamlet of Luetzerath, which has become a flashpoint of debate over the country’s climate efforts, on Wednesday morning. Police spokesman Andreas Mueller said the attacks on officers were “not nice” but noted that most of the protest so far had been peaceful.
Governments urged to confront effects of climate crisis on migrants
The Guardian, 10 Jan 2023
Governments must get to grips with the links between the climate crisis and the plight of migrants around the world, experts have said, as increasingly extreme weather is a mounting danger to already vulnerable displaced people, and is potentially pushing more people to flee their homes.
Climate: Record breaking heat in 2022 shows urgent need to act and avert climate breakdown
Amnesty International, 10 Jan 2023
Reacting to the European Union’s Copernicus Global Climate report showing that 2022 was the fifth hottest year recorded globally, the second hottest ever in Europe, and that levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are at all-time highs, Chiara Liguori, Amnesty International’s Climate Policy Advisor, said: “The unwillingness of states at COP27 to commit to rapidly phasing out all fossil fuels was a collective failure to safeguard human rights and the universal entitlement to a clean, healthy and safe environment.”
‘It’s horrifying’: storm deaths of unhoused people highlight California crises
The Guardian, 10 Jan 2023
California’s devastating winter storms have killed at least two unhoused people, deaths that call attention to the grave risks extreme weather poses to more than 116,000 people living outdoors in the state.
Pakistan: Pledges for flood recovery must be followed through with meaningful climate action
Amnesty International, 10 Jan 2023
In response to the news of donor pledges exceeding financial goals to cross the $9 billion mark during the International Conference on Climate Resilient Pakistan 2023 held jointly with the UN in Geneva yesterday, Rimmel Mohydin, South Asia Campaigner at Amnesty International said: “While this is a welcome step from States that are among those most responsible for climate change, it should not wash their conscience.”
