Amnesty International has written to Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison ahead of the G20 summit in Rome and COP26 in Glasgow. In the letter, Amnesty underscores that the climate crisis and Covid-19 vaccine inequity are both global human rights emergencies, requiring swift and coordinated responses from the world’s advanced economies, including Australia.
The G20 is made up of some of the world’s biggest polluters who are responsible for around 75 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Australia is consistently ranked among the worst G20 countries on climate action. It still remains one of the few advanced economies that has not strengthened its emissions reductions targets by 2030.
And while much progress has been made in ensuring access to vaccines for populations in higher-income countries including Australia, we continue to witness the devastation in some lower-income countries, where minimal rates of vaccination risk leading to tens of thousands of preventable deaths and possible collapse of health systems. It is in this context that Amnesty International is calling on states to fulfil promises made to support fair vaccination roll-outs around the world and to rapidly scale up the redistribution of vaccines to low and lower-middle income countries, to meet the target of vaccinating 40% of the population in these countries by the end of the year set up by global organisations including the World Health Organisation, World Trade Organisation, World Bank and
International Monetary Fund.
