Human Rights Day - Environmental Justice

10th December 2009
Today is Human Rights Day, a day when we commemorate the 61st anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; a landmark document that, for the first time in history, laid out the basic human rights that all citizens of this planet were entitled to, and that should be universally protected.

On this day, EJF reminds our world leaders at the UN Climate Change Conference of their duty to protect and uphold the Declaration.

Sixty-one years ago our world leaders made a commitment to ensure dignity and justice for all following the war. They made a commitment to ensure that everyone’s human rights were protected, no matter where they lived or who they were.

We now face a new challenge to human rights: climate change.

An estimated 12 million people live in poverty because of climate change. By 2050, 150 million people could be forced from their homes because of climate change, facing a future with no means to support themselves. Those at the frontlines of climate change are some of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable countries, yet, for the most part, they have contributed the least in emissions.

EJF believes that world leaders negotiating at the United Nations Climate Change Conference must remember what this day stands for. They must recognize the very real challenge that climate change represents to human rights, and they must work to protect them.

There must be a new, legally-binding framework that both identifies and protects those displaced as a result of climate change, which must be supported by adequate funding.

Our leaders must ensure that everyone has an equal claim to this shared world.