Climate change is focus for Caritas on UN Human Rights Day

(Vatican Radio) UN Human Rights Day (10th December) commemorates the day on which, in 1949, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the UN Declaration on Human Rights.

Caritas Europa has called on world leaders gathered in Paris for the final day of the climate change conference COP21 to put the needs of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable at the heart of the agreement they will reach, calling climate change an “unprecedented assault on human rights”.

Bramble Badenach-Nicolson spoke with Shannon Pfohman, Head of Advocacy and Policy at Caritas Europa about Caritas’ declaration to COP21 and the importance of safeguarding the rights of migrants and refugees at such a delicate and dangerous time in their lives.

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Caritas officials believe that the COP21 Climate Change Conference should really be called a Human Rights Summit, because the poorest and most vulnerable are the most heavily and hardest hit by the devastation of climate change.

Caritas works across the globe with communities that that witness first-hand the increasing ferocity of extreme weather-related events and its devastating impact on their wellbeing and health.

In his message for Human Rights Day, the  UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, reflected on the history of the modern human rights movement which emerged from the Second World War.

He said “today’s extraordinary challenges can be seen – and addressed – through the lens of the four freedoms”, focusing especially on the fourth freedom: freedom from fear.

“Millions of refugees and internally displaced persons are a tragic product of the failure to fulfill this freedom. Not since the Second World War have so many people been forced to flee their homes… in response, we must not close but open doors and guarantee the right of all to seek asylum, without any discrimination. Migrants seeking an escape from poverty and hopelessness should also enjoy their fundamental human rights”.