“Climate change is not just an environmental issue, it is a human rights issue”
December 04, 2015
Dressed in traditional garments, Indigenous representatives at the COP 21 climate change talks in Paris — who included Arctic delegation head Okalik Eegeesiak from the Inuit Circumpolar Council — met Dec. 2 with François Hollande, the president of France, at his official residence, the Élysée.
But despite Hollande’s words of encouragement to the group, which you can listen to here in a video from his office, Indigenous peoples may face disappointment as diplomats and official delegates to the climate change talks fine-tune their new global pact on climate change.
That’s because they may cut out a reference in the agreement’s text on the link between climate change, human rights and the rights of Indigenous peoples, the ICC says.