Indigenous groups hold climate summit in Alaska

The Economic Times , Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Correspondent : AP
ANCHORAGE, Alaska: Indigenous people from around the world are gathering in Anchorage this week for a conference on climate change, a subject participants say disproportionately affects them though they share relatively little responsibility for it.

Patricia Cochran, chairwoman of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, said the United Nations-affiliated conference intends to provide "a unified voice, to be able to have more influence over the political and other decisions that are being made that impact our communities."

About 400 people from 80 nations were expected to attend the Indigenous Peoples' Global Summit on Climate Change, where organizers will create a plan and demand that countries around the world include indigenous people as they respond to climate change.

Indigenous people who "have contributed the least to the global problem of climate change" are often "on the front lines" of the problem, said Cochran, whose group was hosting the summit. The council represents about 150,000 Inuit in Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Chukotka in Russia.

Conference recommendations will be presented in December to the Conference of Parties at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen.

Organizers of the five-day summit said problems of climate change are threatening those who have lived on the same land for generations.

 
SOURCE : Tuesday, April 21, 2009
 


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