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Putting people back at the heart of climate change

 

Developing a diverse portfolio of policies

The issue of climate change is more than environment, more than science, and more than politics. It is fundamentally a human issue as it threatens human prosperity, human rights, and human survival.

Human beings are a component of the wider natural systems that combine to create and sustain life on Earth. These natural systems are the very infrastructure and resources of human civilization. Climate change poses the most immediate and far-reaching threat to their functioning, and already adversely affects the environment, individuals and communities around the planet, through widespread melting of nonseasonal ice and glaciers, changes in precipitation patterns, alterations in ecosystems, and increased incidence of natural disasters.

As Member States of the United Nations we have pledged to promote universal respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms as reflected in, inter alia, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international and regional human rights instruments. The Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment stressed that both aspects of man’s environment, the natural and the man-made, are essential to his well-being and to the enjoyment of basic human rights. Although the constitutions of more than one hundred countries, along with various international instruments, now recognize the human right to an environment capable of supporting human society and the enjoyment of human rights, there is nonetheless no explicit international convention or legal framework recognizing climate change as a threat to human rights For small island states the dangers are immediate and existential. Our small size, remoteness, geographical dispersion, vulnerability to natural disasters, fragile ecosystems, constraints on transport and communication, lack of natural resources, and limited freshwater supply, mean we are particularly vulnerable to even small changes to the global climate. Just as the integrity of our nations is threatened, so are the rights of our people to a safe and secure home and to the enjoyment of their fundamental rights as human beings.

The UNFCCC Conference in Bali between 3 and 11 December provides Small Island States with a historic window of opportunity to shape a new consensus on climate change. We cannot afford to go to Bali as spectators but must instead bring a positive and innovative agenda for change. This agenda should include detailed recommendations on the traditional architecture of global climate change policy, namely mitigation, adaptation, technology cooperation, and financing. Our mission in Bali should also involve placing ordinary people and their basic rights back at the heart of climate change negotiations. In order to
achieve these goals we should work towards two principal outputs - A Declaration on the Human
Dimension of Global Climate Change, and a Resolution on Global Climate Change Policy.

 

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