COP25 Day 4: Young and Future Generations Day

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MADRID, Spain – Today is the fourth day of COP25 and the theme for today is Young and Future Generations Day.

Robin began her day at the United Kingdom Pavilion for a session on “Introducing the Climate Heritage Network and Madrid to Glasgow Arts, Culture, and Heritage Climate Action Plan.”  You can view her report in a separate blog post.

With Texas Impact’s Erica Nelson, I attended a panel discussion of “Human Rights and Climate Action.”  The moderator was Beth Roberts, Program Officer at Landesa, a poverty and land rights NGO which  partners with progressive governments and civil society to develop pro-poor and gender-sensitive laws, policies, and programs that strengthen land rights for the poorest people, especially women.

The first panelist was Ben Schachter, an attorney with the UN Office of Climate Change and Environment.  He began by giving us a few of the statistical impacts of climate change: 600 million people vulnerable to malnutrition, 2 billion people lacking adequate water, and 7 million deaths per year from air pollution.  He stated that while we have high ambitions, we are seeing little measurable action.  In order for action to be viable, we must protect all human rights.  Also, safeguards are essential as are stakeholder consultations which ensure that all effected will be part of the discussions.

The second panelist was Verona Collantes, an Intergovernmental Specialist at the UN Office on Women.  She stressed that women, especially women in the developing world, are agents of change.  They are leaders in addressing climate change.

The next speaker was Sebastian Jodoin, a law professor at McGill University in Canada.  He addressed disability rights and climate change and was very a very compelling advocate for the disabled as he is disabled himself.  He stressed that the environment that disabled persons live in if far too often not responsive to the needs of the disabled and their voices need to be heard in the negotiations.

The fourth speaker was Helda Khasmy, an indigenous environmental defender from Indonesia who focuses her energies on climate change and human rights.  The people she works with have little clean water and multiple land problems which include monopoly monocultures which drive small farmers off the land, extractive mining which makes large areas of land untillable, and deforestation and burning of peat land which contribute to CO2 emissions.  All these factors contribute to lower crop production, lower income for farmers, and the need for increased human rights activity.

The final panelist was Yurshell Rodriguez, a young attorney from Columbia.  It was fitting that she was part of this panel on Young and Future Generations Day at COP25.  In Columbia, there is rapid deforestation in the Amazon rain forest.  One result is greatly increased CO2 emissions.  While the Columbian government had promised action against deforestation as part of the Paris Agreement, no action had been taken.  So two years ago she filed a lawsuit on behalf of young people like herself in Columbia seeking to force the government to take action and fulfill their commitments at Paris.  A few months ago they won that lawsuit and now the government is taking action to prevent further deforestation.

This panel then fielded a number of questions from those attending the session.  Among the questions was one from a Chinese delegate asking what could be done regarding the blatant disregard for both human rights and climate action.  As one of the panelists responded, China is the elephant in the room.

The final question of the day was one that I posed, and it was especially pertinent to those of us from Texas.  I asked, “How does the global community hold the US government accountable for failing to uphold the rights of climate migrants, many of whom are on the border seeking asylum?”  After the moderator said lightheartedly that that was a softball question, the panelists responded. Ben Schachter responded that accountability requires resources which the United Nations currently doesn’t have. The UN Human Rights agency relies on governments which need to do more.  In this case the United States needs to do more.  They are covered by international law, but they are not following those laws.  The problem is that they are not being held accountable.  But human rights and climate change are not mutually exclusive.  They are interconnected, as each of the members of this panel clearly showed in their presentations.

In the afternoon at the CAN (Climate Action Network) daily briefing, the Fossil of the Day was decided.  Today the Fossil of the Day was jointly won by the USA and Russia – the US for their reluctance to embrace loss and damage and Russia for their continued opposition to human rights.

COP25 has been an incredible experience so far.  The size and scope of all that takes place are hard to grasp. I am certainly getting my steps in each day as we traverse the immense venue of multiple interconnected buildings. It has been an incredible joy to make new friendships from around the world.  And the voice of the faith community is becoming more powerful and heard as we bring a moral perspective to a scientific reality.

The Rev. Mel Caraway, a retired clergy member of the North Texas Annual Conference, is a United Methodist EarthKeeper, an environmental mission program affiliated with the General Board of Global Ministries. His reports are adapted with permission from his blog on the Texas Impact website. United Methodist Insight participates in Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration founded by the Columbia Journalism Review and The Nation magazine to strengthen coverage of the climate story.