In early December 2003, delegates from most of the world's nations met in Milan, Italy to talk about climate change. This was a regular meeting, called a Conference of Parties (COP), to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Thousands of people attend these events including representatives of many non-governmental organizations. At issue is ratification of a protocol to the convention--a subsidiary agreement--signed in Kyoto, Japan in 1997. This protocol establishes targets and timetables for countries to reduce emission of greenhouse gases that contribute significantly to climate change.
Joke Waller-Hunter, UNFCCC Executive Secretary addresses the high-level opening of the Ninth Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Milan, Italy, 1-12 December, 2003. Photo courtesy IISD, Leila Mead. |
Sheila Watt-Cloutier, Chair of ICC, attended the COP and gave a briefing to press from around the world. In particular, Ms. Watt-Cloutier spoke of the human rights of Inuit threatened and violated by ongoing climate change and the intent of ICC to defend the human rights of Inuit. This issue of Silarjualiriniq prints ICC's press release and Ms. Watt-Cloutier's remarks delivered in Milan.
PRESS RELEASE
Climate Change in the Arctic: Human Rights of Inuit Interconnected with the World
December 10, 2003
Milan, Italy
Sheila Watt-Cloutier, the elected Chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC), spoke today to media, non-governmental organizations, and states attending the ninth Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Milan, Italy.
Representing the 155,000 Inuit who live in Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Chukotka in the Far East of the Russian Federation and living in Iqaluit, the capital of Canada’s Nunavut Territory, she stressed the need to bring a "human face" to the global proceedings. Existing and projected social and cultural impacts in the Arctic as a result of human-induced global climate change are significant, dramatic and increasing.
Ms. Watt-Cloutier said; "The human rights of Inuit are under threat as a result of human-induced climate change. ICC will defend the human rights of Inuit. We are exploring how best to do this, likely through the Inter-American system invoking the 1948 American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man."
She added: "Inuit hunters understand nature’s rhythms and cycles. Their environmental knowledge is detailed and accurate, and is passed down from generation to generation. But many Inuit hunters now find the weather unpredictable and traveling over the sea-ice dangerous. Hunters are being lost through the sea-ice in areas that, traditionally, have been safe."
Scientists agree that climate change is amplified in the Arctic and that what happens now in this region will happen globally in coming years. The Arctic is the world’s climate change barometer. In consequence, the Governing Council of the United Nations Programme (UNEP) earlier this year called for increased environmental monitoring in the Arctic.
Reflecting these concerns, the eight Arctic nations-Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Russia, and the United States of America initiated through the Arctic Council in October 2000 the world’s most comprehensive and detailed regional assessment of climate change. Scheduled to report in September 2004 to ministers of foreign affairs, this assessment makes stark reading.
Toward the end of the century massive depletion of multi-year sea-ice is projected with much of the Arctic becoming ice-free in Summer. With habitat fundamentally altered, marine mammals including polar bear, walrus, and ringed and other species of seal are projected to virtually disappear. These are key species hunted by Inuit, providing food for families across the Arctic. Ms. Watt-Cloutier said: "Where will we go then for food? What will then become of Inuit? What is at stake here is the cultural survival of Inuit as a people."
We encourage states, particularly the United States of America, to reduce significantly emissions of greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change." She added: "Time is running out for the Arctic. We need far-reaching, long-term global commitments to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases if the Arctic is to be protected and if our human rights, particularly our human rights to subsistence, are to be respected."
Ms. Watt-Cloutier noted: "I am in Milan to share our concerns and to seek the support and help of governments and non-governmental organizations. Inuit are small in number and we engage in the politics of influence not the politics of protest. Our fate and yours are one and the same. We hope all will heed our: "Voice from the North."
She concluded: "We do not invoke our human rights in an adversarial spirit. That is not the Inuit way. The Arctic states account for 40 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, so it is appropriate to use our human rights to prompt a dialogue with Arctic states, particularly the United States of America. It is our intent to educate not criticize, and to inform, not complain. By defending our human rights we will help the world achieve the unity and clarity of purpose it needs to tackle global climate change.
For further information:
Ms. Sheila Watt-Cloutier, tel: 867-979-4661
Mr. Paul Crowley, tel: 867-979-3396
Dr. Terry Fenge, tel: 613-722-7006
Speech Notes for Sheila Watt-Cloutier, Chair, Inuit Circumpolar Conference
Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
Milan, Italy
December 10, 2003
Introduction
Thank you for coming this evening. We are getting to the end of two very busy weeks.
My name is Sheila Watt-Cloutier. I am the elected Chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC), which defends the rights of the 155,000 Inuit who live in northern Canada, Alaska, Greenland and Chukotka in the Far East of the
Federation of Russia. I live in Iqaluit, the capital of the Nunavut Territory, in Canada. With me is Paul Crowley, my legal counsel.
I am here for two reasons. First, to bring a human face to these proceedings. Discussion at climate change COPs tends to focus on political, economic, and technical issues rather than human impacts and consequences. I want to alert you to the impacts that Inuit and other northerners are already experiencing as a result of human-induced climate change, and to the dramatic impacts and social and cultural dislocation we face in coming years.
The human rights of Inuit are under threat as a result of human-induced climate change. So, my second purpose in being here is to announce the intention of ICC to defend the human rights of Inuit by using the well-established tools available under international human rights law.
For generations uncounted, Inuit have observed the environment and have accurately predicted weather enabling us to travel safely on the sea-ice to hunt seals, whales, walrus, and polar bears. We don’t hunt for sport or recreation. Hunters put food on the table. You go to the supermarket, we go on the sea-ice. Eating what we hunt is at the very core of what it means to be Inuit. When we can no longer hunt on the sea-ice, and eat what we hunt, we will no longer exist as a people.
Talk to hunters across the North and they will tell you the same story, the weather is increasingly unpredictable. The look and feel of the land is different. The sea-ice is changing. Hunters are having difficulty navigating and traveling safely. We have even lost experienced hunters through the ice in areas that, traditionally, were safe! Our Premier, Paul Okalik, lost his nephew when he was swept away by a torrent that used to be a small stream. The melting of our glaciers in summer is now such that it is dangerous for us to get to many of our traditional hunting and harvesting places.
We have documented these changes to our environment. Residents of Sachs Harbour, a tiny community in the Canadian Beaufort Sea region, report:
· melting permafrost causing beach slumping and increased erosion;
· increased snowfall;
· longer sea-ice free seasons;
· new species of birds and fish-barn owls (Inuit don’t have barns!), robins, pin-tailed ducks, and salmon -- invading the region;
· invasion of mosquitoes and black flies.
In Alaska, Inuit have reported melting natural ice cellars in which they store food. Plans there are well underway to relocate certain communities if need be. Climate change is not just a theory to us in the Arctic, it is a stark and dangerous reality. Human-induced climate change is undermining the ecosystem upon which Inuit depend for their cultural survival.
Think about that for a moment. Emission of greenhouse gases from cars and factories threatens our ability far to the North to live as we have always done-in harmony with a fragile, vulnerable, and sensitive environment. I am sure you can all see the unhappy irony.
Some might dismiss our concerns saying: "the Arctic is far away and few people live there." That would be immensely short sighted as well as callous. The Arctic is of vital importance in the global debate on how to deal with climate change. That’s because the Arctic is the barometer of the globe’s environmental health. You can take the pulse of he world in the Arctic. Inuit, the people who live further north than anyone else, are the canary in the global coal mine.
Last February the Governing Council of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) passed unanimously a resolution calling for increased environmental monitoring in the Arctic. Following a trip last year to the Arctic, the UK environment minister pointed out that what happens in the world happens first in the Arctic. He is right.
Inuit hunters and elders have for years reported changes to the environment that are now supported by American, British and European computer models that conclude climate change is amplified in high latitudes.
Inuit and the Arctic are sometimes overlooked, but in relation to global climate change I suggest you do so at your peril. What is happening now to Inuit will happen soon to you in the South. This is why UNEP is looking to the Arctic, and why you should as well.
Science has in recent years caught up with our observations. Next September the world’s most comprehensive and detailed regional assessment of climate change and accompanying policy recommendations will be released-it deals with the circumpolar Arctic.
This assessment was initiated in October 2000 by the eight Arctic states that make up the Arctic Council-Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Russia, and the United States of America. ICC and other northern Indigenous peoples have participated actively in the assessment. Ministers of foreign affairs will receive the assessment at their meeting in Iceland in September 2004.
Prepared by more than 200 authors from 15 countries and chaired by the United States, this assessment makes stark reading. Dramatic and drastic depletion of sea-ice is projected. By 2070 to 2090 year-round sea-ice will be limited to a small portion of the Arctic Ocean around the North Pole. The rest of the Arctic will be ice-free in summer! Imagine what that means for Inuit.
Polar bears, walrus, ringed seals and likely other species of seals are projected to virtually disappear. Our ecosystem will be transformed with tragic results. Where will we go then for our food? What then will become of Inuit?
Many of you may not understand the profound implications, life and death implications, these changes have for Inuit. Let me try to give you an idea. Inuit have gone through tremendous transformations in the last century. Our industrial revolution was concentrated and squeezed into fifty instead of 250 years. Those of you that have read Dickens know that such tumultuous change was not always pretty when it happened in Europe. Well, we Inuit also have had our struggles.
Some of you may know that suicide rates are the highest in North America amongst Inuit. Many of our people have resorted to destructive behaviors as they attempt to make sense of the modern world. Those who find serenity and wisdom often do so by going back, as we say, "on to the land." If climate change takes that source of wisdom away from us, just as we are coming through our struggle with modernization then - I profoundly fear for my People. Climate change will be the last straw. To the outside eye, the Arctic environment seems harsh and unforgiving, but to us, Inuit, it has provided us all we needed to thrive sustainably. Yet, with these dramatic changes, the reverse is occurring, and the changes to our climate and our environment will bring about the end of the Inuit culture.
Climate change in the Arctic is not just an environmental issue with unwelcome economic consequences. It is a matter of livelihood, food, and individual and cultural survival. It is a human issue. The Arctic is not wilderness or a frontier, it is our home and homeland.
What can Inuit-only 155,000 of us-do about this global situation? First, we refuse to play the role of powerless victim. Responding to climate change has split the nations of the world. Our plight and the Arctic assessment show the compelling case for global unity and clarity of purpose to forestall a future that is not ordained.
Our rights-our human rights that we share with all of you-to live as we do and to enjoy our unique culture-part of the globe’s cultural heritage-is at issue. The Arctic dimension and Inuit perspectives on global climate change need to be heard in the corridors of power.
At this point I want to make something clear. We are not asking the world to take a backward economic step. All we are saying is that governments must develop their economies using appropriate technologies that limit significantly emissions of greenhouse gases. Short-term business interests won’t accede to this unless governments around the world require it. Inuit and other northerners are at peril because some governments are taking a short-term view favoured by some businesses. This must change. Next year’s circumpolar Arctic assessment will make an unassailable case for the long-term view.
What can Inuit do to convince the world to take long-term action that will have to go far beyond Kyoto? How do we convince the major emitters, such as the United States of America, of the risks we face in the Arctic, including American citizens in Alaska. How can we bring some clarity of purpose and focus to a debate that seems mired in technical arguments and competing economic ideologies?
We believe one route is to look at the international human rights regime that is in place to protect peoples from the very situation facing Inuit-the destruction of our culture. ICC is examining various regimes. We conclude that the 1948 American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man, supported by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, may provide an effective means for us to defend our culture and way of life.
The commission can be invited to Alaska and northern Canada to speak with Inuit and other northerners to find out what climate change means in the Arctic. Other institutions could be used as well.
ICC believes it would be internationally significant if global climate change were debated and examined in the arena of human rights-an arena that many governments, particularly those in the developed world, say they take seriously.
We do not suggest this route lightly, or in an adversarial spirit. The Arctic states account for 40 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, so it is appropriate for us to use our human rights to prompt a dialogue with them, particularly the United States of America. It is our intent to educate not criticize, and to inform not complain. We hope that the language of human rights will bridge perspectives, not lead to more barricades and protest. After all, if we protect the Arctic we will save the world.
Inuit have lived in the Arctic for millennia. Our culture and economy reflects the land and all that it gives. We are connected to the land. Our understanding of who we are--our age-old knowledge and wisdom--comes from the land. It is our struggle to thrive in the harshest environment that has given us the answers we need to survive in the modern world. And perhaps an outlook that sees connection between everything should inform the debate on climate change.
Inuit remain intimately connected with each other and with the land. And, is it not to re-establish that connection that we are all here for? Is it not because people have lost the connection between themselves and their neighbours, between their actions and the environment that we find ourselves trying to come to grips with climate change? All I can say, and I say this with the utmost humility, is that all you decision-makers should come to the Arctic and live with us for awhile. We have a lot to teach the world about getting along together and about respecting the land.
Let me finish by inviting non-governmental organizations, foundations, businesses and industry, and governments to join with ICC in bringing Arctic perspectives and human rights on this global issue to the core of international discussion.
Thank you.
