16 September 2021 - NPWJ News Digest on Environmental Justice & Human Rights

Environmental justice: Why civil rights and protecting the planet go hand-in-hand
DW, 15 Sep 2021

When environmental disasters strike, those already discriminated against can be hit hardest. But marginalized communities can also set a model for resilience. As the global ecological crisis impacts ever-more lives, it is becoming clearer that we cannot talk about cimate change, pollution or biodiversity loss without talking about inequality — whether that's determined by gender, race, class, sexual orientation or disability.

90% of global farm subsidies damage people and planet, says UN
The Guardian, 14 Sep 2021

Almost 90% of the $540bn in global subsidies given to farmers every year are “harmful”, a startling UN report has found. This agricultural support damages people’s health, fuels the climate crisis, destroys nature and drives inequality by excluding smallholder farmers, many of whom are women, according to the UN agencies. The biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions, such as beef and milk, received the biggest subsidies, the report said. These are often produced by large industrialised groups that are best placed to gain access to subsidies.

Human rights could address the health and environmental costs of food production
The Conversation, 13 Sep 2021

Industrially produced food appears to be cheap but is actually very expensive. Recent estimates of the hidden costs of today’s food systems range from US$12 trillion to US$20 trillion annually. These mind-boggling figures include food’s devastating environmental and human rights impacts and poor health caused by unhealthy diets. To put these costs in perspective, they are roughly double the total economic value of the global food system.