A Nobel Peace Prize-nominated Canadian Inuit woman today asked a powerful U.S. commission to monitor the link between climate change and the human rights of some of Canada's must vulnerable.
Activist Sheila Watt-Cloutier appeared before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Thursday morning in Washington, making a presentation on the impact climate change is having on the traditional Inuit way of life.
She told Â鶹´«Ã½net it was a positive meeting and she had the opportunity to present a new perspective to the commission, explaining the link between climate change and the Inuit people's right to culture, subsistence hunting, health and safety and security -- all of which she said are endangered by climate change.
"All of those linkages that we made today, people started to get that and understand it more," she said.
"I asked them to issue a report that makes the linkages between climate change, global warming and human rights, and to monitor the situation for those who are being negatively impacted. And so it's to monitor the impacts, the adaptation issues, because no one else is doing that and those are very reasonable requests and I hope they will be open to doing that."
Watt-Cloutier, the former chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council and a resident of Nunavut, has been acting as an advocate for 150,000 Inuit people in Canada, Alaska and Greenland for more than a decade. She was nominated for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize alongside environmentalist and former U.S. vice-president Al Gore for her work.
Watt-Cloutier was initially denied an appearance before the commission. After more than a year of lobbying the commission agreed to hear her, but with the stipulation that she focus on the broader issue of human rights and climate change, not laying blame for the Inuit situation.
"They wanted to hear the legal aspects, the broader issues of the connection between human rights and climate change, so we were able to testify on the broader larger picture of climate change and human rights, not just for Inuit but for vulnerable peoples of the world," Watt Cloutier said.
"Most people have not made that connection and I think unless you're living in that situation where you see that automatic connection of an erosion or a destruction of your way of life it's hard to see that connection. But today I think they learned a lot more from us""
Though the hearing was in Washington, Watt-Cloutier hopes her advocacy work will also light a fire under the Canadian government.
"I think the petition may be targeted to the United States but it certainly keeps the pressure on Canada and any other countries that are not addressing this issue effectively," she said ahead of the meeting.
Watt-Cloutier was one of the first to link climate change and the erosion of human rights at a 2003 United Nations conference.
