Climate Justice
A Human Rights Approach
Human rights day 2016 focused on “Climate Justice: A Human Rights Approach” a defining issue of our time, with the intent to bring greater awareness and understanding of the inextricable link between climate change and human rights and the profound effect on all of humanity. The integration of human considerations into climate policies is necessary to achieve results that benefit both the people and the planet. Thus, climate actions designed and implemented without respect for human rights risks dramatically violating those inherent rights worldwide.
Featured Speakers
Dr. Simon Adams,
Executive Director of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, has worked extensively with governments and civil society organizations in South Africa, East Timor, Rwanda, and elsewhere. Between 1994 and 2002 Dr. Adams worked with Sinn Féin and former IRA prisoners in support of the Northern Ireland peace process. He is also a former anti-apartheid activist and member of the African National Congress in South Africa.
Hal Harvey is the CEO of Energy Innovation, an energy and environmental policy firm. He was the founder of ClimateWorks Foundation (2008) and Energy Foundation (1991), and served as Environment Program Director at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. He served on energy panels appointed by Presidents Bush (41) and Clinton, and currently serves as President and Chairman of the Board for several financial, science, and philanthropic groups.
Seema Jalan is the Executive Director of the Universal Access Project and Policy at the United Nations Foundation, a multi-stakeholder initiative of foundations and NGOs strengthening U.S. leadership on sexual and reproductive health and rights globally. Seema has more than 15 years of experience promoting gender equality and girls’ and women’s health and human rights globally.
Van Jones is the President & Co-Founder of Dream Corps. Current initiatives, #cut50, #YesWeCode, and Green For All, create innovative solutions to "close the prison doors, open the doors of opportunity, into a new green economy." A Yale- educated attorney, Van has written two New York Times Bestsellers:The Green Collar Economy, the definitive book on green jobs, and Rebuild the Dream, a roadmap for progressives.
Michelle Romero is the Deputy Director of Green For All, a national organization working to build an inclusive green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty. Founded in 2007, Green For All prioritizes the people hit first and worst by pollution and climate change by uplifting their stories and advancing solutions.
With nearly a decade of organizing and advocacy experience, Michelle has worked on a range of issue-based campaigns for higher education, immigrant rights, economic justice, climate justice, and voting rights.
Moderator: Randy Newcomb
Randy Newcomb is the President and CEO of Humanity United. He leads all aspects of Humanity United’s strategic planning, development, and operations. He works closely with the organization’s founders and Board of Trustees to ensure that HU achieves its long-term mission and strategic objectives.
Facilitator: Glen Galaich is the CEO of the Stupski Foundation and is responsible for leading the overall strategy of the Foundation as well as overseeing the programmatic focus areas and operations of the Foundation.
Glen previously served as Chief Executive Officer of The Philanthropy Workshop, whose mission was to educate, inspire, and activate a peer network of effective, engaged, and innovative philanthropists.
Event Images
Resources
Read the Climate Justice Blog Series with posts from Trip Van Noppen (Earth Justice), Dr. Simon Adams (Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect), Vivek Maru (Namati)
Making History At Standing Rock: Tribes Are Leading Action To Preserve The Planet
Article 3 Advisors Blog
In North Dakota, thousands of people are now encamped on the banks of the Cannonball River to oppose the Dakota Access pipeline with the Standing Rock Sioux. Routed through sacred sites, the $3.8 billion pipeline would transport Bakken oil under the Missouri River, where a break or leak would poison water for Standing Rock and potentially millions of people downstream.
Human Rights And Climate Change
OHCHR
In its 5th Assessment Report (2014), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) unequivocally confirmed that climate change is real and that human-made greenhouse gas emissions are its primary cause. The report identified the increasing frequency of extreme weather events and natural disasters, rising sea-levels, floods, heat waves, droughts, etc. as some of the adverse impacts of climate change.
Incorporating Human Rights Into Climate Action
Mary Robinson Foundation
The integration of human rights considerations into climate policies is central to achieving climate action that is good for people as well as the planet. Climate Justice links human rights and development to achieve a people centered approach to climate action - safeguarding the rights of the most vulnerable and sharing the burdens and benefits of climate change and its resolution equitably and fairly.
Climate Justice: The Spectre At The Paris Feast
Alliance
Climate justice demands action from those who are contributing most to climate change and benefiting from resource depletion: developed countries and multinational corporations. This is the area that is crying out for philanthropic action predicated not on charity but directed towards systemic change.
What Does Garbage Have To Do With Family Planning?
Global Daily
It was a hot day and we had taken 3-wheeled ‘tuk tuks’ to navigate our way into the urban slum of Bwaise. I was there to visit a pop up health clinic organized by Marie Stopes-Uganda and funded by the U.S. government.
Pope Laments 'Meaningless Lives' In Tying Human Trafficking To Climate Change
The Guardian
Pope Francis said he had “great hopes” that a fundamental agreement to tackle climate change would be reached in Paris later this year and he believed the United Nations needed to play a central role in the fight against global warming.
A Remote Pacific Nation, Threatened By Rising Seas
The New York Times
Climate change is threatening the livelihoods of the people of tiny Kiribati, and even the island nation’s existence. The government is making plans for the island’s demise.
Women: Silent Players in a Silent Crisis in the Sahel
The Huffington Post
Eight million people are currently in need of emergency assistance, according to a new report from the European Commission. More than 18 million people are facing food insecurity and more than 1 million children under the age of 5 are at risk of severe, acute malnutrition, according to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Climate Policy For The Real World
Energy Innovation
California’s climate policy is a success. Greenhouse gas emissions are falling, and the state has one of the strongest economies in the world. In April and May, California’s economy was responsible for generating half of all the jobs created in the nation. California-born innovations,in technology and public policy, are spreading all over the globe.
Partners
Special Thanks to Our Advisory Committee
Glen Galaich, Libby Marsh, Will Fitzpatrick, Maureen Blanc, Randy Newcomb and Jennifer Davis.