COP15: The human rights of climate change

Climate change is a human rights issue for the indigenous peoples of the Arctic because the actions of people in other parts of the world are depriving arctic peoples of their traditional ways of life, their livelihoods and their cultures. This message was driven home by a variety of presenters, including Inuit leader Sheila Watt-Cloutier.

Watt-Cloutier distilled the message of arctic indigenous peoples in one line: “For us, climate change is an issue of our human rights, and our ability to exist as an indigenous people.”

Indigenous peoples from across the Arctic supplied evidence of how their lives and livelihoods are affected, from traditional travel routes made treacherous by melting ice, to rains arriving in previously rain-free winter seasons. These rains are more than an inconvenience – they freeze into solid layers of ice between the snowfalls, creating a barrier to caribou and reindeer that have to get through the ice to reach food.

Patterns of existence thousands of years old are being thrown into turmoil in a scant few years by the effects of a warming Arctic. Watt-Cloutier also threw a fresh angle on the current controversy over whether the science of climate change is clear and settled. As she noted: “We have observed and we have confirmed the changes in the Arctic for decades now.”

So whether people want to believe the science or not, it is very hard to disbelieve the evidence of the people who live on the land, observe the land, and have first-hand evidence of the changes.

Clive Tesar
Head of Communications, Arctic Programme