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	Climate Change: The poor and voiceless will suffer most by Kumi Naidoo Tcktcktck   Dec. 2009   Tonight in Copenhagen, our world leaders have failed us. But millions of people around the world have woken to the climate crisis, they know the science is clear, and they have come together to create a movement the likes of which the world has never seen.   Civil society has also come together like never before. Our message is clear: world leaders are not done yet, and neither are we.   The Copenhagen climate summit has ended and no, we do not have the fair, ambitious and legally binding agreement that millions around the world hoped more than 120 world leaders gathered here would deliver.   Despite overwhelming scientific evidence, and massive popular support from citizens in countries North and South, world leaders chose national political self-interest over the fate of future generations and failed to resolve the issues blocking the road towards a just outcome. While this deal cannot be judged as a success, it is impossible to be without hope.   This year, a movement touching millions of people in hundreds of countries around the world has grown. Over the last two weeks a total of 15 million voices calling for a fair, ambitious and legally binding deal.   More than 250 partner organisations have come together to form an unprecedented alliance under the TckTckTck banner – including development, human rights, environment, religious and youth groups, trade unions and scout groups. Over three days of global action, these partners have mobilized unprecedented numbers of people campaigning for urgent action on climate change. In Copenhagen on December 12, one hundred thousand people marched in a powerful manifestation of this unity.   And, when naysayers, fearmongers, and the business-as-usual-crowd try to usurp the issue, they will be met by people from all around the globe and all walks of life unified in their demand for a real deal.   The global climate movement - more diverse than ever before - stands united in the face of tonight"s disappointing news. Millions around the world look to the future to get the real deal that the world needs.   The world’s leaders still have a chance to get it right. They must realize that we expect, and will not accept, anything less. They’re not done yet. Neither are we.   Dec. 16, 2009   No region or nation is immune to the ravages of climate change, by Kumi Naidoo.   Melting glaciers, forest fires, droughts and acid seas are some of the well-documented ecological impacts of climate change. But too often, we lose sight of the inextricable link between the environment and how real people are affected. It is now estimated that some 300,000 people, mostly the poor and politically disenfranchised, die every year in our warming world.   Water, food, and habitable land are becoming scarcer, compounding human suffering and multiplying political tensions. The latest figures suggest that if we don’t act now, as many as one billion people will be uprooted by climate impacts by mid-century.   That will inevitably lead to insecurity and conflict. Something an already unstable world can ill-afford. Already climate impacts, such as the drying up of Lake Chad, one of the largest inland seas in the world, have exacerbated the tragedy in Darfur, where water scarcity and competition for land have destroyed the lives of millions. Indeed, climate change arguably constitutes the biggest threat to peace. The costs of inaction will be measured in human lives, and women and children, as always, will bear the biggest burden.   The poor and voiceless will suffer most; they will be hit hardest and fastest. The unfairness of that pains me. They are the least responsible for causing climate change.   To date, US negotiators have only agreed to a provisional cut in US emissions of 3 percent on 1990 levels by 2020 – dangerously below the 25-40 percent cut the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says is necessary to avert catastrophic climate change. Long-term cash injections are desperately needed to allow poor countries to adapt to the climate impacts they are experiencing and will experience. They need money to invest in clean energy sources as they develop their economies.   This is not a simple political crisis: it is a moral crisis. Those from the most vulnerable states face a clear and present danger, but let us be clear, all of the world’s 6.8 billion people will suffer from the consequences of unchecked climate change.   * Kumi Naidoo, Executive Director of Greenpeace, chair the Global Coalition for Climate Action (www.tcktcktck.org) and cochair of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (www.whiteband.org). Visit the related web page
	Climate change is a ticking time bomb for global food security by UN News & agencies   16 December 2009   Climate change driving displacement, says UN refugee chief.   Climate change is the biggest factor driving forced displacement, a top United Nations official said, underscoring that global warming is blurring the traditional distinction between refugees and migrants.   “Climate change is, in my opinion, the most important trigger and the most important enhancer of forced displacement” that is interconnected with other “mega-trends,” such as food insecurity, poverty and conflict,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) António Guterres said.   Climate change, is making natural disasters more intense and frequent, and is also threatening the future of countries, not just small island nations, due to rising sea levels.   It can also set off violence, he pointed out, with resources becoming scarcer and resulting in competition, “which can lead to conflict and conflict will lead to displacement.”   Traditionally, refugees have been seen as people who flee their home country due to war or persecution, while migrants have been seen as people moving to a different nation in search of a better life.   “Now this distinction is becoming more and more blurred because a combination of factors – climate change, food insecurity, poverty, conflict – are becoming more and more interlinked and forcing people to flee,” Mr. Guterres stressed.   Under the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, a refugee was defined as a person having “a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion.”   A new treaty was promoted in October in Africa to protect and assist those uprooted from their homes due to conflict and natural disasters in Africa, which accounts for nearly half of the world’s 26 million internally displaced persons (IDPs).   The High Commissioner called on nations to discuss on how to protect people worldwide not covered under the 1951 Convention and “to address questions of statelessness, namely sinking islands, in which the problem is not only to give a nationality to someone, but to preserve the identity, culture and the history of a population.”   Nobel Peace Prize laureate and green advocate Wangari Maathai has been inducted as a UN Messenger of Peace with a special focus on the environment and climate change in Copenhagen today.   Professor Maathai, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, founded the grassroots group known as the Green Belt Movement, which has planted more than 40 million trees on community lands across Africa and worked to improve environmental conservation and reduce poverty.   Wangari Maathai has warned that developing countries need significant new funding to adapt to the impacts of climate change and to mitigate its causes as it is the industrialized countries historic responsibility for polluting the atmosphere.   “I think that in some countries like in Africa and small island states, people are already suffering, and I think that the rich countries have a responsibility to do what is morally right, just and fair".   “It is a matter of social justice to support these countries because rich countries are largely responsible for what is happening.”   Dec. 2009   The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter has underlined that any agreement reached in Copenhagen must emphasize human rights to avert hunger among the world’s most vulnerable.   “Climate change is a ticking time bomb for global food security,” said Mr De Schutter.   Global warming, he said, disproportionately impacts some of the poorest countries, especially the most vulnerable in these nations, with small-scale farmers and indigenous peoples dependent on land for their livelihoods.   The expert called on States to “exploit the untapped potential of sustainable agriculture in order to combat hunger and climate change at the same time.”   He also reiterated last week’s call from a group of UN human rights experts, including himself, that “a weak outcome of the climate change negotiations threatens to infringe upon human rights.”   Policies, Mr. De Schutter said must be based on a human rights framework and take the right to adequate food into account so that the needs of the most vulnerable will be prioritized and that poverty and inequality will not be exacerbated.   “This is not a theoretical debate,” he stressed, adding that there have been real cases of the violation of the right to food linked to climate policies.
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