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	Climate Change: Protect the human rights of all People by OHCHR / Nobel Peace Laureates   December 2009   Joint Statement of UN Human Rights Experts on the UN Climate Change Conference. (OHCHR)   “While there is a growing consensus on the adverse impact that global warming is likely to have on the environment and economic growth, the serious threats it poses to the full enjoyment of a broad range of human rights still need to be properly understood and addressed.   “A weak outcome of the forthcoming climate change negotiations threatens to infringe upon human rights,” the experts said. Rising sea levels, increasing ocean and surface temperature and extreme weather events like storms, droughts and cyclones have, and will continue to have, a range of direct and indirect implications for the enjoyment of human rights.   “Adaptation or mitigation measures, such as the promotion of alternative energy sources, forest conservation or tree-planting projects and resettlement schemes must be developed in accordance with human rights norms,” warned the experts. “Affected individuals and communities must participate, without discrimination, in the design and implementation of these projects.” Inadequate mitigation and adaptation strategies can lead to human rights violations when, for example, tree planting efforts fail to ensure adequate participation of local communities or if due process is not respected for any necessary displacement.   The adverse effects of climate change are felt most acutely in the poorest countries of the world. Poor or otherwise marginalised individuals and communities, who often live in areas prone to natural disasters and depend on natural resources for their subsistence, face the greatest risk. They are less able to prepare for, or adapt to, climate change and its effects on the accessibility and availability of food, drinking water, sanitation, adequate housing or health care.   A growing number of people will face displacement and the loss of their homes and livelihoods, which may also result in increased social unrest. “Focusing on the rights of those who are already vulnerable and marginalised due to poverty and discrimination, a human rights-based approach to climate change can be a useful tool to complement international efforts aimed at tackling the adverse effects of global warming,” affirmed the experts.   In accordance with international human rights law, States have an obligation to take individual and collective measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and their adverse impact, as well as to assist those who are most vulnerable in preparing for, and adapting to, its inevitable impact.   “Because of the productive and reproductive roles they play in many societies, women are likely to be more severely affected than men by climate change. They are overrepresented in the agricultural and forestry sector, and often bear the responsibility of gathering food, water and fuel, which requires greater effort and time during floods, droughts and storms,” the UN human rights experts stated.   Indigenous peoples are another example of particular vulnerability to the adverse effects of climate change, since they often inhabit fragile ecosystems and have traditional ways of life closely associated with the land and natural resources. Climate change has already had especially direct and significant effects on indigenous peoples.   The experts urge participants at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference “to step up their efforts to achieve a new agreement that prevents further climate change, protects affected individuals from its adverse impact and leads to the formulation of global and national mitigation and adaptation responses based on internationally recognised human rights norms and standards.”   Dec. 2009   Final Statement of the 10th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates. Statement to COP15 Climate Change Meeting.   The 2009 Nobel Peace Laureate Summit concluded that Climate change now poses an unacceptable risk of catastrophic and irreversible harm at a global scale, possibly even within the next decade, threatening global peace, human security and development and putting the sustainability of human society in jeopardy.   Current negotiations are based on scientific information that is several years out-of-date. The latest science indicates that, on the balance of probabilities, we have badly underestimated both the extent and speed of climate change, to the point that we now run a rapidly increasing risk of sudden failure of some part of the climatic system, possibly via tipping points which may prove irreversible.   Despite 20 years of negotiation, virtually nothing has been done so far to contain the problem and there is no sign of that changing at the forthcoming Copenhagen meeting. Excellent work is underway by concerned governments and organisations, but it is now clear that conventional processes will not deliver the speed and extent of change required to avert potentially catastrophic impacts.   New thinking is required to break through politics-as-usual. We have run out of time to take a graduated response and we must now move to global emergency action. This will require cooperation across the spectrum, involving civil society, public and private sectors, bipartisan political involvement, on an unprecedented scale. As the world’s poorest suffer most from but contribute least to climate change and as we bear responsibility for future generations, climate justice must be a guiding principle.   Successful resolution of our climate and sustainability dilemma requires transformational change, not incrementalism. It means almost complete decarbonisation of the global economy by 2050, a peaking of global emissions by 2015 and reduction of carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere. This is a far greater task than is acknowledged politically, but it is achievable given the will and statesmanship which humanity has demonstrated in previous emergencies.   Every effort must be made to reach an agreement at Copenhagen built on the latest science, however unlikely that may be. If an unsatisfactory compromise does materialise, or no agreement is reached, the danger is that the pressure for further change will evaporate, locking in potentially catastrophic outcomes as carbon emissions continue to accelerate. From a global peace and security perspective, let alone from moral and ethical considerations, that cannot be allowed to happen. Visit the related web page
	Climate change is also an issue of the right to life by Internews, Panos and IIED   Dec. 2009   Maldives leader urges end to climate blame game, by Wasantha Ramanayake.   The threat to human lives as sea levels rise under the influence of climate change is also an issue of the right to life, says the leader of one small developing naation.   President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives says: “We have a fundamental right to life. If that is challenged, we have to make it a human rights issue, not just an environmental one.”   He was speaking to Nalaka Gunwardane, director of the newly released film ”Small Islands – Big Impact”, in an interview which forms the basis of the film.   President Nasheed says in the interview that climate change is both a global human rights issue and a security threat to small, low-lying island nations like his.   Under some scientific scenarios, he said, small islands such as the Maldives could go under water in no time. “This is a very real threat to us,” he warned. “We will die if this goes on.”   Democracy and good governance were vital elements in humanity’s struggle against climate change, he said.   Traditional methods of adapting to climate change such as physical structures like embankments and breakwaters would not be enough.   Climate-induced pressures are already affecting fisheries and tourism, the two most important sectors of the Maldivian economy, President Nasheed said. “Even now, some islanders have to move home from where they lived. There are serious coastal erosion problems. So that’s all very real, and it’s happening now.”   In a message to the Copenhagen climate summit he said that the damage had already been done, and “there is no point in pointing fingers.”   “Don’t be stupid. Going on and on about who did it is not going to save us,” he said. But he asked the developed countries for funds and technology to save poorer countries from disaster.   The film featured the fate of small island nations which are vulnerable to climate change. With an average ground level of 1.5 meters (5 feet) above sea level, the Maldives is the lowest country on the planet.   The film shows how the Arctic ice is melting and sea water is expanding as global temperatures increase, making sea levels rise. This is expected gradually to submerge the Maldives and other low-lying islands.   It shows how other effects of climate change such as coastal erosion, the intrusion of salt water into fresh water sources, and extreme weather events could make some islands uninhabitable.   Recently the Maldivian Cabinet met under water, giving what many believed to be a strong message to the developed countries of the impact of climate change on the small and most vulnerable island nations, which include Sri Lanka. The magazine Time named President Nasheed a Hero of the Environment for his climate advocacy.   In March 2009, President Nasheed announced that the Maldives would become the world’s first fully carbon-neutral nation within a decade. To do this, it would vigorously pursue renewable energy and green energy sources to replace its current fossil fuel dependence.   *Forty journalists from Asia, Asia-Pacific, Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean and Latin America are participating in a climate change media partnership to improve media coverage of climate change issues in developing countries. Visit the related web page
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