ANCHORAGE, Alaska, April 20 (UPI) -- Indigenous people from 80 nations are meeting in Alaska for a United Nations-affiliated conference to discuss mitigation and adaption to climate change.
Hosted by the Inuit Circumpolar Council, the Indigenous Peoples' Global Summit on Climate Change is also designed to develop recommendations to present in December to the U.N. climate change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, at which a successor agreement to the Kyoto protocol will be negotiated.
The Anchorage, Alaska, summit concludes Friday with a declaration and action plan, and a call for world governments to fully include indigenous peoples in any post-Kyoto climate change regime adopted in Copenhagen, the United Nations University said in a news release.
Officials said early climate change effects are already being reported in Papua New Guinea, Borneo, Mexico, Kenya, South America and Nepal.
"Indigenous peoples have contributed the least to the global problem of climate change, but will almost certainly bear the greatest brunt of its impact," said Patricia Cochran, chairwoman of both the Inuit Circumpolar Council and the summit. "Indigenous peoples are on the front lines of this global problem at a time when their cultures and livelihoods in traditional lands are already threatened by such trends as accelerating natural resource development stimulated by trade liberalization and globalization."
