Emily Gertz is a freelance journalist, editor, and blogger covering the environment, technology, science, and sustainability. She reported on the Copenhagen climate talks on behalf of Oxfam America.
Indigenous leaders at the Copenhagen talks remain guardedly optimistic that the human rights of their peoples will be recognized in an international climate agreement.
They’re just not particularly upbeat that it will happen here.
“Human rights should be an integral part of any climate response: the right to life, adequate housing, food, an adequate standard of health,” said John Henriksen, a Saami of Norway and human rights legal expert.
Along with these rights, Henriksen said, indigenous peoples have internationally recognized rights to live according to their traditional cultures and practices, and need to have these rights acknowledged as well in any international climate agreement.
Henriksen spoke to a packed room on Wednesday, as part of a panel representing indigenous peoples of Kenya, Peru, the South Pacific, the Arctic and other regions.
The speakers charged that their communities are not consistently included in the deliberations toward a new international climate treaty, even though they are already being affected by the impacts of climate change.
Many of these communities still rely heavily on the world’s remaining forests for their subsistence and livelihoods.
Some of these same forests capture and store massive amounts of carbon that would otherwise end up in the atmosphere; how to place a value on that ecological service is a key pont of contention at the climate talks.
Another divisive issue at the talks is how much financial support the industrialized nations (which are historically responsible for most of the excess greenhouse gases in the atmospere) will provide for developing nations to adapt to changing climactic conditions.
It’s not yet clear how or if indigenous peoples will be included in programs and projects funded by these monies.