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Mary Robinson

For Our Grandchildren: Climate Justice

I am often asked why I focus more and more on the issue of climate change, given that for most of my life as a lawyer, senator, President of Ireland and then UN High Commissioner, I championed the cause of human rights. The answer is two-fold. First, because climate change poses the greatest threat to human rights – and to poverty reduction and global development – that the world has ever seen. Second, and just as important, I care about the issue of climate change because as a grandmother, I feel very responsible for the mistakes we are making today that will leave a dangerous legacy for future generations.

Our image of the effects of climate change has, up until now, been a polar bear floating on a shrinking ice floe. But in reality, the image we should have in mind today is of people, especially the poor and vulnerable, coping with the disastrous effects of human-induced climate change on their lives that come with changes in weather patterns.

In arid regions from Africa to India, rainfall patterns have changed so much that drought and flooding happen regularly and farmers note that even the regular rhythm of seasons has changed. The incidence of severe storms is increasing, taking the lives especially of the poor, destroying farms and livelihoods, and ruining infrastructure like roads, schools and health clinics. In low-lying parts of the world, from Bangladesh to The Maldives, sea level rise will wipe out whole nations and cultures. These are only some of the human impacts from climate change facing people across the world. And in turn these impacts cause others, not least an increase in migration, and greater conflict over land, water and other resources.

I was in Copenhagen during the climate negotiations. Tens of thousands of people marched in a vigil to show their shared commitment to climate justice - women and men, young and old, Danish and foreign. They represented voices from the environmental, development, faith, labor and youth movements, and people newly aware of the importance of climate change.  They called for a fair, ambitious and binding deal in Copenhagen. And around the world there was an extraordinary global outcry for climate justice.

People in developing countries are not responsible for this crisis, but they are paying the steepest price. We cannot afford to let our fellow human beings who are vulnerable bear the brunt. A climate justice approach demands that we distribute burdens fairly and that polluters pay. A climate justice approach means that we cannot allow today’s negotiators to squander our grandchildren’s future.

I attended ‘climate hearings’ in Africa and in Copenhagen during which Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu and I heard moving testimony from women and men from around the world about how changes in the weather have irrevocably altered their lives. What is as tragic as their despair is the way that public awareness of such changes has grown so slowly, despite having been confirmed by scientists for many years.

We know the benefits of governments working together to tackle shared threats. Climate change is arguably the starkest example of a threat we, as a community of nations, must tackle together. An approach based on climate justice recognizes the responsibility of industrialized countries to help the poorest countries adapt to current and future environmental changes, as well as the need for dramatically increased support to low income countries so that they can develop and expand technologies to fund their own low-carbon development.

The talks in Copenhagen, therefore, were hugely disappointing. They fell into finger-pointing rather than taking shared responsibility. While governments agreed that it is imperative to have ambitious targets on emissions reductions that keep temperature rise as far below 2 degrees as possible, they failed to agree the interim reduction targets to get there. This leaves us on a path to a disastrous level of global warming. The financial pledges are higher than previously agreed, but they will not enable developing countries to adapt successfully to the effects of climate change, and they will not provide the resources for poorer countries to achieve low-carbon development. This stands in contrast to the willingness of governments to bail out banks and provide subsidies to fossil fuel companies and agribusiness.

What was agreed in Copenhagen does not come close to getting the job done. We risk climate change negotiations mirroring the ongoing failures of world trade talks – with countries arguing only in their own narrow and short-term self-interest, rather than recognizing our interdependence and making the difficult but important political decisions that will benefit humankind more broadly. The world cannot afford brinksmanship on the issue of climate change – we need the best political leadership possible.

World leaders need to re-convene as early as possible in 2010 to complete a fair, ambitious and legally-binding climate change treaty. We have the means to tackle this shared threat – but in 2010 we have to muster the will.  The costs are huge, but the costs of inaction are far larger.

A group of us known as The Elders – inspired by Nelson Mandela and chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu - are calling on leaders of the US and other developed economies to agree that global greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced by at least 50 percent by 2050, and commit to emissions cuts of 25-40 percent by 2020, and at least 80-95 percent by 2050, relative to levels in 1990. We are urging industrialized countries to provide the majority of financial support necessary to help developing countries.

We have today many resources at our disposal to tackle climate change and have hardly begun to explore the technological innovations that will produce renewable energy sources and help create a cleaner and safer planet. In my work I meet community leaders, entrepreneurs, and academics from around the world that are beginning to make a real difference. There is enormous energy and appetite for the next ‘industrial revolution’ to help mitigate the effects of climate change and adapt to the effects we are too far along to stop. The opportunity to create greener economies is recognized by a growing number of major companies – but the fruits of greening our economies must also go to small businesses, entrepreneurs and workers around the world. I am convinced this can happen if we harness the collective potential and act together.

Each one of us has a role to play. In addition to reducing our own carbon footprints, a good place to start is educating ourselves about climate change and making our leaders see that their citizens not only understand its effects, but care enough to raise their voices and demand change. But we must act now. The very future of our planet – and our grandchildren – depends on what we do today.

-Mary Robinson is the President of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative, a member of The Elders inspired by Nelson Mandela, a member of the Club of Madrid - www.clubmadrid.org., and a Honorary President of Oxfam International. She served as the President of Ireland and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.