The victim has been wounded. The gun still smokes. The assailant has all but admitted to squeezing off that first shot. But can he be forced to disarm?
That’s one way to describe the issue at an extraordinary hearing on whether inaction over climate change has violated the human rights of the Inuit people of Alaska, Canada, Greenland and Russia.
- Stories about the hearing:
- AP story
- Guelph Mercury
- MCW News.
The Inuit Circumpolar Conference filed a petition two years ago arguing that the United States should have its feet held to the fire over its contributions to global warming. The ICC will make its case before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington, D.C., on March 1 — though the issue will no longer focus solely on the U.S. role.
“They are giving us an hour — myself, and my legal team, but they want to broaden the debate,” Shelia Watt-Cloutier, former ICC chair and a nomineee for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, said during CTV’s Question Period on Sunday. “They want to see how this relates to the real legal aspects for all people who are vulnerable and who are negatively impacted by global warming and climate change.”
Why blame the U.S.?
“Among nations, the United States has long been the world’s greatest consumer of energy, and hence of fossil fuels,” the petition argues.
“U.S. emissions of energy-related CO2 are vastly out of proportion to its population size. With only 4.7% of the world’s population, the United States produced 24% of global emissions in 2000.415 On a per-person basis, U.S. emissions in 2000 were more than five times the global average.416 They were nearly two-and-a-half times the per capita emissions in Europe,417 and nine times those in Asia and South America.”
It’s an interesting notion — sort of applying the theory of the commons to the global atmosphere.
The petition, filed in 2005, was signed by 63 Inuit hunters from Greeland to St. Lawrence Island, including 14 Alaskans like the late Herbie Nayokpuk of Shismaref, Jerry Wongitillin of Savoonga, and Eugene Brower of Barrow.
- Climate Change goes to Court
- Lawsuits abound
- Walruses and Polar Bears
- Center for Bio Diversity
- Original ICC lawsuit news
The 167-page document is a plain-language legal brief, with 796 footnotes, and its PDF online format includes many hyperlinks to sources. It contains photographs and graphics, some of them now famous. It spells out how the changing climate will make it harder, if not impossible, for Inuit people to hunt marine mammals, travel over ice and subsist on wild food.
The testimony cites a litany of problems and sometimes offers an intimate glimpse into the problems and technology of hunting on sea ice, and how changing climate has thrown up frustrating barriers and shifted the rules.
CO2 Sources / IPCC
A 2005 release from Inuit Circumpolar Conference:
Dr. (Robert) Corell stressed two key conclusions of the ACIA, “Marine species dependent on sea ice, including polar bears, ice-living seals, walrus, and some marine birds are very likely to decline, with some species facing extinction; and
“For Inuit, warming is likely to disrupt or even destroy their hunting and food-sharing culture as reduced sea ice causes the animals on which they depend to decline, become less accessible, and possibly become extinct.”
Ms. Watt-Cloutier said, “Inuit are an ancient people. Our way of life is dependent on the natural environment and animals. Climate change is destroying our environment and eroding our culture. But we refuse to disappear. We will not become a footnote to globalization.
“Climate change is amplified in the Arctic. What is happening to us now will happen soon in the rest of the world. Our region is the globe’s climate change “barometer.” If you want to protect the planet, look to the Arctic and listen to what Inuit are saying.”
The petition focuses on the United States of America because it is by far the largest emitter of greenhouse gases and it refuses to join the international effort to reduce emissions. The petition asks the Commission to hold hearings in northern Canada and Alaska to investigate the harm caused to Inuit by global warming. Specifically, the petition asks the Commission to declare the United States of America in violation of rights affirmed in the 1948 American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man and other instruments of international law.
The petition urges the commission to recommend that the United States adopt mandatory limits to its emissions of greenhouse gases and co-operate with the community of nations to “prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system,” the objective of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. As well, the petition requests the Commission declare that the United States of America has an obligation to work with Inuit to develop a plan to help Inuit adapt to unavoidable impacts of climate change, and to take into account the impact of its emissions on the Arctic and Inuit before approving all major government actions.
The ICC wants the commission to investigate the harm caused by global warming to northern communities, write a report that declares the United States has been “internationally responsible for violations of rights” under international treaties and recommend that the U.S. adopt mandatory measures to limit emmissions.
With the Democrats in control of Congress, serious discussion of cutting back on emissions has begun. Stay tuned. The debate is just warming up.