Sheila Watt-Cloutier has a simple prescription for staying warm in the icy fringes of the Arctic where average annual temperatures can plummet down to near zero degrees Fahrenheit: Don’t eat brand-name soup.

“It’s not going to be Lipton Cup-a-Soup that’s going to keep you warm,” said Watt-Cloutier, who was born in the Eastern Arctic of Canada. “It’s going to be our ‘country food,’ our seal meat that warms you up from the inside out.”

Watt-Cloutier has spent more than 25 years advocating for the rights of the Arctic’s Inuit peoples and other Indigenous groups around the world. On Friday, she addressed an audience of hundreds in the Glenn Miller Ballroom on the CU �鶹ӰԺ campus as the first keynote speaker of the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Summit.

Speaking to the packed room on her birthday, Watt-Cloutier quipped that when many people living in the United States think about the Arctic, their minds go to a hallmark of capitalism: soda commercials—the ones where polar bears frolic with seals on the ice.

“The world knows more about our wildlife and the ice of the Arctic than its people,” she said.

Watt-Cloutier has spent her career trying to put a human face on this cold part of the planet and on the changes in climate that have devastated the region—causing temperatures to soar and melting the Arctic’s all-important sea ice. She also noted that Indigenous peoples aren’t merely the victims of climate change. They are also in the best position to solve this global crisis, which has begun to affect communities around the world, even in the balmier south.

“Indigenous wisdom is the medicine the world seeks to attain sustainability, and we’ve got to start to tap into that wisdom,” Watt-Cloutier said. “We can show the world about sustainability because we still rely on our environment, our lands, our water to sustain our way of life.”

“The world knows more about our wildlife and the ice of the Arctic than its people.”

—Sheila Watt-Cloutier

Shared trauma

One of the key themes of Watt-Cloutier’s moving keynote address was that the problems facing the planet and its people today aren’t separate. As she put it, “Human trauma, planet trauma are one in the same.”

Today, roughly 165,000 Inuit people live in the Arctic, spread across parts of the United States, Canada and Russia. Watt-Cloutier explained that the legacy of colonialism has taken a toll on the culture and livelihood of these communities. In the 1950s, for example, the Canadian government began a campaign of taking Indigenous youth from their homes and sending them to schools far from home. 

The impacts of climate change, she added, are just the latest manifestations of that traumatic history. At the same time, communities across the globe are also beginning to notice the consequences of the Arctic’s collapse—through wildfires, floods and other disasters.

“[The Arctic] is the air conditioner for the planet,” Watt-Cloutier said. “It’s breaking down and it’s hurting not just us in the Arctic and our way of life, but it is creating the havoc we see today.”

Warm bellies

She also believes that the ingenuity of Indigenous peoples can help to solve these problems.

Watt-Cloutier spoke proudly about how Inuit peoples invented, among other things, the kayaks that are popular across the globe.

“We can build a home of snow warm enough for your mothers to birth in,” she said. “We can still do that today. That’s architecture and engineering at its best.”

Time and time again, Watt-Cloutier returned to food as a solution to many of the issues in modern Inuit communities. She spoke about her young grandson who is autistic and feels more “grounded” when he eats a traditional Inuit diet, including seal meat.

“Food is medicine for him, especially protein, especially country food.”

Indigenous contributions to solving the globe’s climate crisis may also go beyond nutrition and inventions. Watt-Cloutier said that many Indigenous communities, including Inuit peoples, recognize that humanity can only solve its climate crisis by working across cultures and nations.

“We can’t think our way out of this,” she said. “We have to feel our way out of this.”

At the end of Watt-Cloutier’s talk, she and the audience highlighted what might have been a small example of that shared humanity. The Glenn Miller Ballroom serenaded the advocate with a standing ovation and rendition of “Happy Birthday.”

“I hope somebody captured that because my people aren’t going to believe this,” Watt-Cloutier said.

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“This is the time in history where humanity has to understand that we own the power that will change the world. For so long we have been looking to political will to make change and where has that gotten us? We have to stand up and hold each other’s hands and create the difference we so badly need.”

—Hilda Flavia Nakabuye, youth activist, Uganda

  10% of population are responsible for 50% of world’s fossil fuel emissions, while the poorest 50% contribute only 10%

  216 million people will migrate within their own country by 2050 – World Bank

Nearly 4,000 people from 90 countries convened at CU �鶹ӰԺ, either virtually or in-person Friday, for a day-long, candid exploration of something speakers contend isn’t talked about enough: how climate change impacts people’s lives right now.

“A lot of times, we talk about climate change as an issue that will affect future generations, but the reality is, for many communities climate change is already here …and has been for a long time,” said New Zealand-based Indigenous and disability rights activist Kera Sherwood O’Regan during the panel “”

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis kicked off the three-day Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Summit with a stark reminder that no corner of the globe is immune to the impacts of a rapidly warming planet.

Less than one year ago, he noted, just miles from his podium, �鶹ӰԺ County suffered the most destructive fire in the history of the state, a rare wintertime blaze that burned more than 1,000 homes, including those of many CU faculty and staff.

“There’s no denying that climate change is also a humanitarian crisis,” Polis said.

Marshall Islands to Uganda

Throughout the day, speakers from distant corners of the globe shared what that humanitarian crisis has looked like for their communities.

For the young women of South and Central America, crushing drought has forced northward migration, which often comes with danger, including sexual assault, explained Astrid Puentes Riańo, a lawyer and human rights advocate from Colombia who joined the first panel.

She noted that in 2018, a staggering 82% of crops were lost in Honduras, prompting caravans of people, many of them women, to head north.

“It is not the same to be a wealthy man or woman here in �鶹ӰԺ impacted by climate change as it is for a 14-year-old Indigenous girl migrating all the way from Central America,” Riańo said. “If she is lucky, she will get to the U.S. alive.”

During an emotional keynote speech, with images of her great grandfather and other elders displayed behind her, Indigenous rights activist Sheila Watt-Cloutier described how youth suicide rates among the Inuit in the Canadian Arctic are soaring, in part due to the rapid vanishing of ice (long used for hunting, transportation and housing) and a cultural cornerstone for the Inuit people.

“The ice is our life force,” she said.

During an afternoon session titled “,” youth activist and poet Selina Leem, from the Marshall Islands, spoke of a growing up in a place, just 2 meters above sea level, where global warming could literally mean the submergence of her homeland.

“We are not accepting of the idea of permanently relocating from our country. It is where it is and that is where we deserve it to be,” Leem said.

Beside her on stage, youth activist Hilda Flavia Nakabuye described how droughts and floods, and the resulting lack of harvest, forced her family of farmers to sell portions of their land and pull her out of school when they couldn’t pay the fees.

“Meals reduced from five a day to two to one until we just had to wait for water from the stream and then the stream started drying up. We asked why the gods were punishing us,” Flavia Nakabuye said.

Even well-intentioned “solutions” to climate change can also inflict harm, said panelist Mattias Ãhrén, who comes from an Indigenous reindeer-herding community in northern Sweden, where sprawling wind farms have begun to gobble up vital pastureland. 

“Yes, climate change is terrible, but sometimes the fight against it is even worse,”  Ãhrén said.

With candid stories about the devastating impact of climate change came stories of progress.

Panelists noted that at last month’s United Nations Climate Conference, COP27, in Egypt, participating countries reached a historic decision to establish a “loss and damage fund” to support nations most vulnerable to the climate crisis.

This summer, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution recognizing the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment as a human right. And a record 300 representatives from Indigenous communities attended COP27, noted Sherwood O’Regan. (Notably, 600 representatives from the fossil fuel industry were also there).

“Loss and damage getting across the line at COP27 is absolutely massive,” Sherwood O’Regan said, stressing that the initiative was brought forth by Indigenous and other front-line communities impacted by climate change. “It is critical that we give credit where it is due. They have not been given space by developed nations, it has happened because people have banged down the doors of those negotiation rooms.”

When asked by NPR journalist and panel moderator Lakshmi Singh to name their No. 1 ask in the battle to save the planet from climate change, the answer from afternoon panelists was universal: representation.

“The power to make decisions has to be shifted from those who might have the means to those who are actually affected,” said Ãhrén.

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Iran & United States

Expertise:
Human Rights
Law & Policy

Humanitarian Action and DRR Advisor

Day 1: Impacts

Panel:

Friday, December 2, 2022

Elham Youssefian joined the International Disability Alliance (IDA) Secretariat in November 2019 as the inclusive humanitarian action and DRR advisor. She leads and coordinates the implementation of IDA’s strategy to promote and support the effective enforcement of inclusive humanitarian action and disaster risk reduction. She ensures strategic leadership, coordination, provision of technical expertise and advice to optimize the impact of IDA’s work in this area.

Youssefian has a PhD in international law from the Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran, Iran, and a master’s in human rights law from the London School of Economics and Political Science. She also has diverse experience in protection and human rights, with a focus on issues related to human trafficking, refugees, domestic violence and discrimination against people with disabilities.

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United States
Newscaster and Guest Host •

Day 1: Impacts

Panel:

Friday, December 2, 2022

If you've ever caught yourself mouthing the words "I'm Lakshmi Singh" at the start of one of her newscasts, you're not alone. It's a thing.

Lakshmi Singh has inspired memes, songs and voice cameos in film and television. (Actor and comedian Zach Woods, of The Office and Silicon Valley, once joked with late night TV host Conan O'Brien that Lakshmi Singh was his “cocaine.”)

Millions of people who gravitate to NPR have come to know Singh's work well.

Singh is an award-winning journalist. She has spent the last 30 years collaborating with some of the most talented producers, editors, photojournalists and engineers in the industry to deliver thousands of historically significant stories as an anchor and a news magazine host, as well as a field reporter and an audio documentary producer when she covered stories in Central America and the Caribbean. She recently spent time in the field researching the impact of climate change on Indigenous communities in Belize.

Singh anchors Midday for NPR Newscasts, which is one of the top three most downloaded podcasts in the United States. NPR Newscasts are also the most heard content on public radio, reaching more than 24 million listeners weekly through traditional radio listening.

Singh has invested decades advocating for stronger representation of people of color and women in newsrooms across the United States, as well as training and mentoring new generations of journalists. Her efforts are underscored by recognition from respected education and research organizations, such as the Asian American/Asian Research Institute and the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center.

Singh is a graduate of Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and College of Arts and Sciences, where her work focused on Latin American studies, Spanish and broadcast journalism. 

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United States
Senior Correspondent •

Day 1: Impacts

Panel:

Friday, December 2, 2022

Justin Worland is a Washington D.C.-based senior correspondent for Time covering climate change and the intersection of policy, politics and society. He has covered the topic since 2015. Previously, he covered health and breaking news for the magazine.

In 2022, Worland was named the inaugural Climate Journalist of the Year by Covering Climate Now, a non-profit dedicated to improving climate journalism. He is a founding steering committee member at the Uproot Project, a non-profit organization that works to diversify environmental journalism. He is a Los Angeles native and a graduate of Harvard College, where he studied history.

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Lebanon

Expertise:
Law & Policy
Human Rights

Vice Chair

Day 1: Impacts

Panel:

Friday, December 2, 2022

Nahla Haidar El Addal is one of the vice chairpersons of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Haidar has also been elected as a commissioner of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ). She acted as the rapporteur for the elaboration and adoption of CEDAW General Recommendation 37 on the gender-related dimensions of disaster risk reduction in the context of climate change.

Haidar has over 30 years of professional experience, mainly within the United Nations System in various capacities at headquarters and in the field, ranging from social development and humanitarian assistance to peace-building and human rights. She holds an LLM in law from Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris and a law degree in international law from Saint Joseph University (USJ) in Beirut, Lebanon, as well as a license in sociology. Arabic is her mother tongue and she is fluent in French and English with a fair knowledge of Spanish.

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Colombia

Expertise:
Law & Policy
Human Rights
Climate Change & Environment

Lawyer, Consultant and Board Member

Day 1: Impacts

Panel:

Friday, December 2, 2022

Astrid Puentes Riaño is a lawyer with more than two decades of experience in environmental law, human rights and climate change, and the intersection of these, with a perspective of climate justice, diversity, equity and inclusion. She has worked for and with communities and Indigenous peoples in Latin America, contributing to the protection of their rights and territory, including in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Peru. She received her law degree from the Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá, holds a master's degree in comparative law from the University of Florida and has an environmental law degree from the University of the Basque Country. She served as co-executive director of the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense, AIDA, from 2003 to August 2021. She is an independent consultant and has advised the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights in Mexico on catalyzing actions to better protect the environment, human rights and climate. 

Riaño has extensive experience in public interest environmental, human rights and climate justice litigation. She has published several articles and lectured at the Human Rights Academy of the American University, and at the Diploma on Strategic Litigation and Tools for the Defense of Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights at UNAM in Mexico, among others. She has been part of the board of directors of International Rivers since September 2021.

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“Children have a lot of their future ahead of them. They have to know about climate change so they can stand up, speak up and fight for their future.”

—Kera Sherwood-O’Regan

When Kera Sherwood-O’Regan was young, her parents gathered the pito (umbilical cord) that had nurtured her in the womb, and, per tradition, buried it on sacred coastal grounds in Te Waipounamu, the South Island of New Zealand, alongside the remains of her ancestors.

Growing up in the Kāi Tahu tribe, she learned early on to treat Aoraki, the chiefly mountain of her people, and Waitaki, their river, with reverence. When she went fishing with her dad, he would always throw the first catch back to Takaroa, the god of the ocean, to ensure the  sustainability of the fish stocks for future generations.

“From the time we are born, we see ourselves in a deep relationship with the environment, and with that relationship comes responsibility,” said Sherwood-O’Regan, who will serve as a panelist at the upcoming Right Here, Right Now Climate Summit on the CU �鶹ӰԺ campus.

As climate change increasingly threatens that environment and the people who depend upon it, Sherwood-O’Regan has taken that responsibility seriously, serving as a vocal advocate not only for her fellow Māori—the Indigenous people of New Zealand—but also for people with disabilities. Having been diagnosed with fibromyalgia in her 20s, she seeks to assure that Indigenous people, people with disabilities and people like her at the difficult intersection of the two have a voice at the table.

That’s critical, she said, because they are at once uniquely affected and uniquely well suited to provide solutions.

“Indigenous and disabled people have been organizing and innovating and creating novel solutions to problems for generations, because there has been no other option for us,” said Sherwood-O’Regan, co-founder of Activate, an Indigenous- and disabled-led social impact agency. “But only very recently have our views and experiences been [accepted as] part of the mainstream climate conversation.”

Citing her mentor, Rhys Jones, she described climate change as an “inequity magnifier.” Hold it, like a magnifying glass, over existing inequities/social issues and those challenges grow more intense. She noted that in New Zealand, only about 2% of homes are accessible to people with disabilities. With waters rising because of climate change, rendering some coastal homes unsafe, that housing stock is shrinking further.

Climate change-related heat waves can also exacerbate symptoms. For instance, people with spinal cord injuries may have trouble regulating their body temperature and are more likely to suffer heat-related illnesses. Higher pollen counts and extended allergy seasons can worsen respiratory issues among those with asthma, allergies and other chronic illnesses. Her own symptoms, including migraines and fatigue, flare when the temperature rises. When climate change-related disaster strikes, deaf people and people who are hard of hearing may not hear the sirens, and people with disabilities may have trouble being evacuated.

“Everyone has the right to be rescued, but in many areas around the world, civil defense planning doesn’t account for disabled people,” she said.

More than 1 billion people, or 15% of the population, have a disability, according to the United Nations, and disabilities are disproportionately high among Indigenous populations.

“There is a massive intersection between Indigenous rights and disability rights,” she said.

For her, and other Indigenous people around the world, climate change brings another more visceral threat: the loss of their cultural sites.

Already, the burial ground Sherwood-O’Regan’s parents visited after her birth has begun to erode as rising seas lap at the coast. She has visited occasionally, reinforcing her connection to her ancestors and the land of her people.

She hopes that if she has children someday, she can do the same for them.

“It makes me so emotional to think about it. I don’t ever want to have to say, ‘I’m sorry. But we lost that land.’”

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Sweden (Sámi)

Expertise:
Law & Policy
Human Rights
Education

Professor of International Indigenous Rights and Sámi Law

Day 1: Impacts

Panel:

Friday, December 2, 2022

Mattias Åhrén originates from Ohredahke Sámi, an Indigenous reindeer herding community in northern Sweden. He holds Master of Law degrees from Stockholm University and the University of Chicago, and a PhD from The Arctic University of Norway (UiT), where he is a former professor and presently a visiting law professor. Åhrén teaches international law, human rights, Indigenous peoples’ rights and Sámi rights at universities around the world. He has written extensively on Sámi and Indigenous rights, including Indigenous Peoples’ Status in the International Legal System. 

As a practicing lawyer, Åhrén has served in a diplomatic capacity in numerous UN negotiations and processes relevant to Indigenous peoples’ human and other rights, especially with his leading role in the negotiations before the adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Åhrén has also been commissioned to write expert reports by UN system organizations and specialized agencies. He has acted as counsel to Sámi Indigenous reindeer herding communities in proceedings before domestic courts and international judicial institutions, most recently in the Rönnbäcken case before the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. 

Åhrén has also served, on several occasions, as an expert witness in domestic court proceedings on Sámi land and resource rights, including in the seminal Girjas case. He has appeared in the same capacity before national parliaments and has participated as an appointed expert member in national legislative committees. Åhrén was a member of the Expert Group, which wrote the draft Nordic Sámi Convention.

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Marshall Islands

Expertise:
Youth Activist

Day 1: Impacts

Panel:

Friday, December 2, 2022

Selina Leem is a climate warrior and a poet from the large ocean nation of Aelōn̄ Kein Ad, the Marshall Islands. Crediting her late grandfather for her deep awareness of the fate of her home, she has made it her mission to globally raise awareness of the climate crisis.

Representing the Marshall Islands at the age of 18, Leem was the youngest delegate at the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference in Paris. Alongside then Marshall Islands Foreign Minister Tony deBrum, they delivered the closing statement for their country. Leem went on to many other global stages to speak on behalf of her people, using storytelling and spoken word. Most recently, Leem was a  speaker at the 2021 TED Countdown Summit.

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