Seeking global attention, Philippines moves human rights probe to New York

NEW YORK: A Philippines human rights commission opened hearings in New York into whether oil companies violate human rights by causing climate change, hoping to attract the attention of world leaders meeting at the United Nations.

Survivors of a 2013 typhoon have asked the commission to assess the responsibility of oil companies for manmade global warming, which is linked to extreme weather events such as storms and hurricanes.

Thursday’s hearings, the first time the sessions were held abroad, opened on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly of world leaders.

“It’s symbolic,” Roberto Eugenio Cadiz, chairman of the independent commission, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The commission is mandated by Filipino law to probe rights abuses.

The complaint, brought by survivors of Typhoon Haiyan which killed thousands of people in 2013 and by more than a dozen organisations such as environmentalists Greenpeace Southeast Asia, names 47 fossil-fuel companies.

The companies include giants Exxon Mobil Corp, Royal Dutch Shell plc, Chevron Corp, Total and BP plc, none of which returned requests for comments.

None of the 47 fuel companies accepted invitations to partake in the process, said Cadiz, though some challenged the body’s jurisdiction over the matter.

The hearings were held in an austere business conference room, with an empty seat earmarked for the absent oil company representatives.

The archipelago nation of the Philippines, with about 22,000 miles of coastline, has been battered by intensifying Pacific Ocean typhoons that cause devastating floods.

On Thursday, Cadiz questioned Brenda Ekwurzel, lead author of a study published in the academic journal Climate Change, that measured the contributions of greenhouse gas emissions to global warming by industrialised and developing nations. — Reuters