By NATION REPORTER
VICE President Mutale Nalumango, has called for global cooperation in reversing the negative effects of businesses on the environment.
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In a stirring and passionate address to the United Nations High-Level Event on Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland, Ms. Nalumango said certain business operations were responsible for the destruction of the environment through greenhouse emissions and that this needed urgent global action.
“In Africa for example, many countries like my country Zambia, have contributed marginally to environmental degradation, but like other low-income countries, bear the severest consequences of the resultant climate change due to the effect of business operations,” she said.
Ms. Nalumango lamented the impact of climate change on food production in countries that depend on rain fed agriculture.
“In Zambia today, we no longer have our clear blue sky in the dry season, we don’t even see well spread-out clouds to give us productive rains. When rain comes, it leaves a trail of destruction along its paths, floods, destroyed infrastructure or it doesn’t come at all, or when it comes it leaves too soon before crops can mature,” she said.
Ms Nalumango said multinational corporations particularly in Africa were responsible for much of the pollution, resulting in unpredictable weather patterns causing havoc in communities deepening the violation of human rights.
“Profits from businesses have enabled high-income countries to develop technologies to adapt to the effects of climate change, technologies which are neither available nor accessible to low-income countries, which have done the least to cause it, but bear the brunt of environmental harm,” she said.
Ms. Nalumango called for accountability and presented several proposals to address the impact of multinational businesses on the environment.
“States and businesses must have a collective position and implement the United Nations Guiding Principles on Businesses and Human Rights as adopted unanimously by the UN Human Rights Council,” she said.
Ms. Nalumango said there was a need for countries to work together and speak with one voice in order to collectively harmonise human rights and environmental stewardship.
“States and businesses must have a collective position and implement the United Nations Guiding Principles on Businesses and Human Rights as adopted unanimously by the UN Human Rights Council. Businesses must conduct due diligence on the adverse impacts of their operations, products and services on the environment,” Ms. Nalumango said.
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