Jour-fixe: “How climate change affects international human rights: Impacts on people’s lives in Russia and abroad”

1 February 2010 at Sakharov Museum and Public Center, the Heinrich Böll Foundation held the third jour-fixe devoted to the climate change and human rights.The event started with a report of Theodor Rathgeber, who has a doctorate in political science, works as a freelance author and consultant in the areas of human rights, minorities, indigenous peoples, and development cooperation. In his speech he told on international standards of human rights and how can human rights be included in the global climate policy. Then, the Batani Fund representative in her presentation narrated on the small-numbered indigenous peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East, their observation of the climate change and how these changes reflect on traditional economic activity of the indigenous peoples of the North.During discussion, having lasted for one and a half an hour, the participants (researchers, journalists, students) considered many themes: from doubting the connection of current climate change with human activity aftereffects to problems of interrelation between the indigenous peoples of the North and industrial companies and also the necessity to adopt more efficient policy on protecting the indigenous rights on the level of the state. Also, the participants discussed various variants of the northern peoples’ development and the possibilities of their adaptation under the changing climate, as it happens now for example, in the north of Germany.

By results of the discussion, it can be resumed that today, considering problems of the small-numbered indigenous peoples of the North is absolutely necessary, as representatives of the Russian public are aware of the indigenous northerners’ real life too little.