Mary Robinson on Hurricanes, Monsoons and the Human Rights of Climate Change

Deeply important. - Molly

  

Extreme storms make the case that climate change is not only a threat to our environment, but also a threat to the human rights of many poor and marginalized people around the world.

By PAT MITCHELL 

 

Two years ago, former president of Ireland Mary Robinson graced the TEDWomen stage with a moving talk about why climate change is a threat not only to our environment, but also to the human rights of many poor and marginalized people around the world.

 

Mary is an incredible person who inspires me greatly. Besides being the first female president of Ireland, she also served as the UN high commissioner for human rights from 1997 to 2002. She now leads a foundation devoted to climate justice. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama, is a member of the Elders, a former Chair of the Council of Women World Leaders and a member of the Club of Madrid.

 

 “I came to [be concerned about] climate change not as a scientist or an environmental lawyer,” she told the TEDWomen crowd in California. “It was because of the impact on people, and the impact on their rights — their rights to food and safe water, health, education and shelter.”

She told stories of the people she met in her work with the United Nations and later on in her foundation work. When explaining the challenges they faced, they kept repeating the same pervasive sentence: “Oh, but things are so much worse now, things are so much worse.” She came to realize that they were talking about the same phenomenon — climate shocks and changes in the weather that were threatening their crops, their livelihood and their survival.

In the wake of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma in the United States, and extreme monsoons in South Asia, I reached out to Mary to get an update on her work and where things stand now in terms of climate justice and the global fight to curb climate change. Despite a busy week attending this week’s United Nations General Assembly and other events, she took the time to answer my questions via email.

Pat Mitchell: Horrific hurricanes like Harvey, Irma and now Maria, are bringing the issue of climate change to the doorsteps of a country that recently dropped out of the Paris climate agreement. What would you say to Americans about climate change and the actions of their government in 2017?

Mary Robinson: In the past few weeks alone, we have seen the physical, social and economic devastation wrought on some American cities and vulnerable communities across the Caribbean by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, and the death and destruction caused by monsoons across South Asia. The American people know from previous experience, such as Hurricane Katrina in 2005, that some people affected will be displaced from their homes forever. Many of these displaced people are drawn to cities, but the capacity to integrate these new arrivals in a manner consistent with their human rights and dignity is often woefully inadequate — reflecting an equally inadequate response from political leaders.

The profound injustice of climate change is that those who are most vulnerable in society, no matter the level of development of the country in question, will suffer most. People who are marginalized or poor, women and indigenous communities are being disproportionately affected by climate impacts.

And yet, in the US the debate as to whether climate change is real or not continues in mainstream discourse. Throughout the world, baseless climate denial has largely disappeared into the fringes of public debate as the focus has shifted to how countries should act to avoid the potentially disastrous consequences of unchecked climate change. For many years, the US has positioned itself as a global leader in science and technology and yet in seeking to leave or renegotiate the Paris Agreement, the current administration is taking a giant leap backward, both in terms of science-based policy making and in terms of international solidarity and cooperation.

Please continue this interview here: http://billmoyers.com/story/mary-robinson-hurricanes-monsoons-human-rights-climate-change/