Video: Why Climate Change is a threat to Human Rights — Mary Robinson

Mary Therese Winifred Robinson (née Bourke; Irish: Máire Bean Mhic Róibín; born 21 May 1944 in Ballina, County Mayo) served as the seventh, and first female, President of Ireland from 1990 to 1997, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, from 1997 to 2002. She first rose to prominence as an academic, barrister, campaigner and member of the Irish Senate (1969–1989). She is widely regarded as a transformative figure for Ireland, and for the Irish presidency, revitalising and liberalising a previously conservative, low-profile political office. She resigned the presidency two months ahead of the end of her term of office to take up her post in the United Nations.

In this short lecture, Ms Robinson talks about the disparate impact that climate change has on the developing world.  While rich countries can fight against rising oceans and dying farm fields, poor people around the world are already having their lives upended — and their human rights threatened — by killer storms, starvation and the loss of their own lands. Mary Robinson asks us to join the movement for worldwide climate justice.