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Inuit to Charge U.S. for Climate Change |
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By Stephen Leahy*
The
Inuit peoples of the Arctic regions hope the Inter-American Commission
on Human Rights will find that the United States, the leading emitter
of carbon dioxide, is threatening their existence. Their action
is seen as the first case that links climate change and the rights
of indigenous communities.
BROOKLIN, Canada - The Inuit people of the
Arctic regions are preparing to charge the United States with human
rights violations, saying that country is the leading culprit behind
climate change, which threatens their way of life -- and their very
survival.
The sharp increase in temperatures in the Arctic has led to dramatic
losses of sea ice and melting permafrost (the layer of ground that
normally remains frozen year round), which have destroyed buildings
and roads and forced relocations of entire native Inuit villages.
A recent four-year international scientific study concluded that
polar bears (Thalarctos maritimus), walrus (Odobenus rosmarus) and
some seal species the Inuit depend on for survival could be extinct
by the middle of this century due to global warming.
Because of this looming crisis, the Inuit Circumpolar Conference
(ICC), a group representing some 155,000 people in the Arctic regions
of Canada, Russia, Greenland, and the United States, will present
a petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR)
in the next few months.
Their goal is for the IACHR, an independent agency of the Organization
of American States, to find against the United States, the world's
leading producer of greenhouse gases (29 percent), for causing global
warming and threatening the Inuit's existence.
''Global warming is destroying the Inuit sea ice culture. Our traditional
wisdom on how to survive and thrive on the land is becoming useless
because everything is changing, and changing fast,'' ICC chairwoman
Sheila Watt-Cloutier told Tierramérica in an interview last year.
The Inuit support the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, which takes
effect Feb. 16, because it is the only global instrument available
for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, said Watt-Cloutier. But ''emission
reductions will have to go way beyond Kyoto to be of any help to
the Arctic peoples.''
U.S. President George W. Bush withdrew his country's signature from
the Kyoto Protocol in 2001, shortly after taking office, arguing
that compliance with the emissions reduction targets would hurt
the national economy.
The 136 countries that ratified the accord are legally bound to
reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by an average of five percent
from 1990 levels each year between 2008 and 2012.
"It is the responsibility of the United States, as the largest source
of greenhouse gases, to take immediate action to protect the rights
of the Inuit and others around the world," Martin Wagner, an international
attorney for Earthjustice, a U.S.-based non-profit law firm representing
the Inuit, told Tierramérica.
Impacts from climate change are well documented in the Arctic, and
the United States has officially admitted that man-made emissions
are, in part, responsible for global warming. The environmental
devastation in the Arctic regions is not so different from other
international cases where dams, logging or toxic chemical spills
in waterways have been interpreted as violations of basic human
rights, Wagner said.
But the IACHR is a commission, not a tribunal that can issue binding
verdicts, and can do little more than make recommendations.
''If the commission finds that the United States has violated the
Inuit's rights, it will recommend that the United States take steps
to end the violation,'' says Donald Goldberg, senior attorney from
the Center for International Environmental Law, a Washington-based
group that is also helping the Inuit with their petition.
While the IACHR cannot enforce its recommendations, it would make
it much easier to file lawsuits against the United States in international
court or against U.S. companies in federal court, Goldberg said
in an interview.
This will be the first climate change case the IACHR has heard,
and likely the first of its kind anywhere else, he said.
Despite the urgency of the issue, Inuit are being very cautious
and will not file their official petition until late in the northern
hemisphere spring or in early summer, he said. A ruling could take
several years.
''While the Inuit hope to raise public awareness about how they
are being hurt by climate change, they also hope other groups will
take similar actions,'' added Goldberg.
Millions of people in mountainous areas, low-lying island and coastal
regions, and other vulnerable parts of the world will soon face
other similar threats created by global warming, he said.
In December a leading climate scientist and British legal expert
wrote in the journal Nature: ''Litigation in relation to greenhouse
gas emissions is increasingly likely, and has already started.''
Scientific evidence is now strong enough to link climate change
to extreme weather events such as the 2003 European heat wave that
was implicated in the deaths of more than 14,000 people in France
alone, according to the article.
Climate change lawsuits are already popping up within the United
States. Eight states and New York City filed a lawsuit against five
U.S. power companies for their contribution to climate change.
A coalition of U.S. environmental organizations announced on Dec.
5 that they are suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
for its continued failure to take action on global warming.
Legal wrangling aside, ICC chief Watt-Cloutier wants the people
of the United States to understand that ''what they do on a daily
basis is having a direct impact on a people, a culture, and a way
of life... The Arctic is melting.''
* Stephen Leahy is a Tierramérica contributor.
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