How climate change undermines human rights

I gave a short presentation (April 7^th)about climate change and human rights to the NGO/CSW Taskforce on Women and Climate Change. It was a rather informal gathering of representatives from a variety of NGOs who are working in the field of climate change in various capacities. During the course of my research on the topic of climate change and human rights many interesting facts arouse and I was truly amazed by the clear gendered dimensions of climate change. For instance, I was alarmed to learn that more women than men die during natural disasters because they are not warned, they cannot swim or because they are not allowed to leave the house alone. Following disasters, all too often services and facilities are inadequately equipped to meet the specific needs of women, or are all together unavailable to them. Research shows that heightened levels of physical and sexual violence perpetrated against women occur after natural disasters. Many sources also report that violence and vulnerability to violence is escalating as the affects of climate change force women and girls to take longer and more precarious journeys to collect water and wood.

I really enjoyed researching the topic and presenting my findings to the small group. The vice-president of Solar Cookers International (www.solarcookers.org) was present at the meeting and she is interested in learning more about the Barli Institute (the photo above is from their institute) in India and other Baha’i initiated environmental projects. The Baha’i International Community (BIC) has been actively involved in efforts relating to climate change and sustainable development for many years. In addition to participating in various NGO and UN events and discussions, the BIC recently released a statement on climate change: http://bic.org/statements-and-reports/featured/Climate-Change-paper.pdf

As the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) draws closer and closer, there are many new and interesting assignments for the BIC interns.  In addition to participating in an online discussion, we are also researching case studies of community adaptation with a focus on the ethical and moral dimensions of climate change. Each BIC intern has a slightly different interest within the realm of environmental issues (my specific interests are environmental security, conflict and refugees and women and climate change). Discovering what each intern’s interests are and how their work at the BIC is shaping their understandings of these issues will be the focus of my next blog post.