COP15: Climate Change

The Conference of the Parties under the United Nations' Climate Change Convention will be held in Copenhagen from December 7th to 18th and unfortunately, if media reports are correct, one of the likely outcomes may be that the Kyoto Protocol is not extended beyond 2012.

With climate change rapidly accelerating that leaves a very short period of time for the nations of the world to come to a new agreement that attempts to mitigate its effects.

Inuit Nunangat, our homeland, is currently at the epicenter of climate change. The rate of warming in the Arctic is unprecedented in recorded history, and the effect of this warming on our lives, our lands, and our culture, have been significant. While the governments of the world have held conferences to discuss what, if anything, needs to be done, our weather patterns have become unpredictable, our lands have shifted, the ice has melted, invasive species of plants and animals have moved northward, and the wildlife that our survival has depended upon for millennia is threatened.

Our message to those attending the Copenhagen conference is simple; a global community inability, for whatever reason, to both recognize the very real threat posed by climate change, and to achieve consensus on how to address it, is not an option.

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