INDIGENOUS PEOPLES HAVE CRUCIAL ROLE IN CLIMATE CHANGE DEBATE – UN FORUM
New York, May 5, 2008 6:00PM
Indigenous peoples have an important role to play in the global response to climate change, given their knowledge and experience with impacts of the phenomenon, and should be included in the international debate on the issue, a United Nations gathering on indigenous affairs concluded.

Climate change was the special focus of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, which wrapped up its seventh session in New York on 2 May.

In one of nine texts approved by the 16-member body, a subsidiary of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the Forum recommended that the international community take serious measures to mitigate climate change, as the survival of the traditional ways of life of indigenous peoples depended in large part on the success of those efforts.

The Forum stressed that indigenous peoples’ traditional livelihoods and ecological knowledge can significantly contribute to designing and implementing appropriate and sustainable mitigation and adaptation measures.

In addition, it recommended that the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and relevant parties develop mechanisms to allow the participation of indigenous peoples in the global debate on the issue, particularly the forthcoming negotiations on a new global climate change agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol – set to expire in 2012.

A working group on local adaptation measures and traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples should be established, the Forum added.

Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, the Forum’s Chairperson, noted that although indigenous peoples were among those most directly affected by climate change, they had largely been kept out of the international dialogue on the issue despite their historical role in resisting oil, gas and coal exploitation and their practice of using their lands, air and forests in sustainable ways, not in pursuit of “giant profits.”

She added that in moving forward, corporations, as well as States, must be guided by the standards set out in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Adopted by the General Assembly last September, the document sets out the rights of the world’s estimated 370 million indigenous people to culture, identity, language, employment, health, education and other issues, and outlaws discrimination against them.

The Forum, which drew the participation of some 3,300 delegates from around the world, also addressed issues such as indigenous peoples in the Pacific region and indigenous languages during its just concluded session.

Climate Change in Russia

Consequences of climate change for Russia are ‘here and now’ says international report
Part of: Climate change

MOSCOW - Oxfam, one of the world’s leading humanitarian organizations, and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) a heavy-hitting environmental group, have teamed up to produce the first report on the impact of climate change in Russia on the well-being of Russian society.
Victoria Kopeikina, 02/07-2008 - Translated by Charles Digges
The report will be released in Russia in early July.

The doubling up of the humanitarian and environmental spheres in the area of climate change is part of a new tendency in studying climate change, as the projected the environmental catastrophes due to climate change will have a direct impact on the world economy, a broad range of societies and will effect where future battle lines for resources are drawn as a result of entire populations migrating to more hospitable lands.

The authors of the report “Russia and Adjacent Countries: Ecological, Economic and Social Consequences of Climate Change,” say that Russia and its neighbors are already confronting the effects of global warming. They further say that the struggle will, in the near term, only become more difficult. “This is the first report that looks at social and economic consequences of climate change for Russia and its neighbors, not just environmental consequences, which we are used to hearing,” said Nikolas Koloff, director of Oxfam Russia. He said that Russia faces mass migrations of populations in Russia as well as its neighboring countries as people search for water resources.

Central Asia drying up
The first instances of “climate poverty” have already turned up in Central Asia, says the report. These include the drying up of the Aral Sea – at one time the 4th biggest land-based water source in the world – which experts say is at least 20 percent attributable to climate change and 80 percent the fault of over-taxing its resources for farm irrigation. The death of the lake has led to mass migrations from Tajikistan and poverty for those who have remained. Global warming in Central Asia, say the report’s authors, will, in the western and southern regions where the bulk of agriculture and the population are concentrated, bring about a 10 to 20 percent river outflow reduction annually due to dwindling ice packs that feed riverheads. The report forecasts more spring flash floods and a harsh water deficit in the summer. Tajik specialists say that by 2050, thousands of small glaciers in the country will have disappeared, iced areas will reduce by 20 percent, and the volume of ice overall will be reduced by 24 percent. In the previous century, experts estimate, Tajikistan lost more than 20 cubic kilometers of ice. As a result, Tajikistan’s rivers have lost 3.3 cubic kilometers of outflow a year over the last 30 years.

Balancing energy and climate
But there are some deceptively positive impacts of climate change projected for Russia. For instance, the peak home heating seasons will drop by 5 percent in their duration by 2025. But the report’s authors note that the reduction in winter’s length carries with it unstable and changeable weather conditions that will lead to abnormally high and low temperatures, and strong winds and blizzards during the home hearing season and later. These conditions will require no less heat, which means pollution levels will not drop.

The situation in Russia’s regions will become more severe with a growing use of coal in residential homes. The energy balance of the country would then expect a growing portion of the most polluting coal – with pollution rising by as much as two times in southwestern Siberia, where pollution is already a problem. Rising gas cost could also trigger more pollution as households switch to coal. Climate change and accompanying pollution, say the report’s authors, will mean shortened life expectancies for Russians – whose short average life spans are already creating a demographic crisis – by an average of two years. The efforts toward resolving Russia’s demographic mayhem, says the report, will come to nothing “if the health of Russians is sold abroad in the form of expensive gas.”

The climate and permafrost
Another climate threat to Russia is melting permafrost, which could wreak havoc with the infrastructure of northerly regions of Russia. The report indicates that over-saturated building foundations could lead to accidents. The areas at most risk, according to the report, is Chukotka, in Northeastern Siberia, the upper basins of the Indigirka and Kolma River, the southeastern portion of the Yakutsk region, the Western Siberian plains, the shores of the Kara Sea, Arctic Island of Novaya Zemlya, as well as other island frost north of Russia’s European territory.
These areas host Russia’s oil and gas complex and associated pipelines, the Bilibin Nuclear Power Station and the electrical infrastructure surrounding it. Melting permafrost in northern Russia could lead to radioactive leaks from storage facilities. The report’s authors are especially troubled, however, about radioactive dump-sites on Novaya Zemlya, a former nuclear weapons testing range.

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