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ENVIRONMENT: Novel Tribunal Gives Voice to Climate Change Victims
By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK, Oct 7 (IPS) - Shorbanu Khatun flew into the Thai capital to share her pain about being a
victim of a natural disaster. In May, Cyclone Aila tore through her community
along the coast of Bangladesh, adding another layer of misery to the 36-year-
old’s already impoverished life.
"We have no food, no clean water," the single mother of four children said,
fighting back tears. "I am here to tell you that there is nothing left in our
village after the cyclone."
It has meant her family being forced to live in the open on an embankment
for nearly five months. "Our village is still under water," she added, referring
to the impact of the cyclone that killed more than 200 people and left over
500,000 people homeless in Bangladesh and neighbouring India.
She, however, was only one of many climate victims who shared their
personal narratives of woe during a novel exercise – a mock trial – to shed
light on the debilitating impact a rapidly warming planet is having on the
millions of Asia’s poor.
Pablo Rosales, a fisherman from the Philippines, also gave testimony during
the mock international tribunal that sought to "examine the culpability of
developed countries for global warming and claim damages."
The ‘Asian People’s Climate Tribunal’ was held in a banquet hall of a hotel a
short distance away from where government negotiators from the developing
and developed world are meeting at the two-week-long United Nations
climate change talks that commenced on Sep. 28.
"The rise in sea levels in our community is very difficult for us; we experience
much suffering," the 50-year-old Rosales told an audience of some 500
activists and climate victims who attended the hearings of the tribunal on
Oct. 6. "Because of the sea level rising, we have a lower fish catch. Our
drinking water has also become salty."
The half-day tribunal – complete with a three-judge bench and prosecuting
and defence lawyers – is part of a global drive by international environmental
groups, humanitarian agencies and local non-governmental organisations to
give voice to the world’s poor in the run-up to the U.N. climate change
summit to be held in December in Copenhagen. Over 100 hearings are being
held around the world "involving more than half a million people in 17
countries," states the British humanitarian agency Oxfam, a key backer of this
drive.
"We hope these hearings will convey a message to the United States, Canada
and New Zealand – the usual Kyoto Protocol villains – that there are real
people getting impacted by climate change," said Shailendra Yashwant,
campaign director for the Southeast Asia office of Greenpeace, a global
environmental lobby.
The Kyoto Protocol set binding targets for 37 industrialised countries and the
European Union to slash their greenhouse gas (GhG) emissions by five
percent by 2012 relative to 1990 levels. The Copenhagen climate summit
aims to unveil a new environmental treaty for the post-Kyoto Protocol period,
including new targets for GhG emissions, which are largely responsible for
global warming and its consequence – more frequent and intense natural
disasters.
But with the clock ticking, many of the industrialised countries have still to
meet their 2012 GhG emission targets. The U.S. government, moreover, has
remained an outsider to the protocol.
The stories of people like Khatun and Rosales are important to shape the
current climate change talks, Yashwant told IPS. "Within the current
negotiation framework there is no space for the voices of the impacted
people to be really heard. It is only a space for bureaucrats."
"Global warming is certain, and it will be unfair to the poor and the people in
the developing world," said Ahsam bin Ahmed in his role as an expert witness
during the tribunal, referring to the vulnerability of these groups to the global
phenomenon. "The total number of disasters and disaster-related problems
will increase manifold."
"There will be a shortage of drinking water, and food security will be
threatened," added the Bangladeshi scientist who served as a researcher on
climate vulnerability for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC). The panel brought together teams of scientists to produce a series of
reports on global warming ahead of a climate change summit in Bali in 2007.
The IPCC’s fourth assessment report, ‘Climate Change 2007’, warned that if
the current rate of GhG emissions continues unchecked, the consequences
from extreme weather events such as storms, floods and droughts to a rise in
sea level would be dire. Among its disturbing projections are threats to
economic growth and to "the very survival of the most vulnerable
populations."
For the millions of the world’s poor, who lack the means to deal with the
impact of climate change, an increase in the Earth’s temperature by more
than two degrees Celsius could translate to a life of regular displacement,
states the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC), the secretariat for the environmental treaty.
"More than 20 million people were displaced by sudden climate-related
disasters in 2008 alone. An estimated 200 million people could be displaced
as a result of climate impacts by 2050," warns a UNFCCC background note.
But getting the world’s rich industrialised countries – and the major sources
of GhG – to listen and find solutions to these vulnerable millions remains a
daunting task at the current climate talks here. The discussions over the
200-page text that negotiators are working on at the closed-door climate
talks reflect this, according to those familiar with the negotiation process.
"The rich countries will not hear these voices because they have to be
responsible and take action to prevent further disaster," Saleemul Huq, a lead
author of the IPCC report on the impact of climate change, told IPS. "And the
poorer countries have a good message, but their voices are not strong in
these sessions."
(END/2009)
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