The Climate Crisis, Global Land Use, and Human Rights

Date: September 27, 2019
Location: Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice, 320 East 43rd Street, New York City

Access the live-stream video recording here

Registration is closed.

The conference agenda is available here.

See logistical information here.

On September 27th, the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI), Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, Landesa, and Wake Forest Law School will be hosting a day-long conference on the intersection between land use, the climate crisis and clean energy transition, and human rights.

The climate crisis threatens to dramatically alter people’s relationships with the land on which they rely. Meanwhile, many climate solutions are themselves land-intensive, including solar and wind energy, carbon dioxide removal, and finding places for people displaced by climate change to live and grow food, thus potentially increasing competition for land.

This conference will analyze the critical role that land plays in achieving climate solutions, the degree to which climate change may impact land’s ability to provide a sustainable ecosystem, and the ways in which these land and climate interactions might affect land rights, human rights, and achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.

In particular, the conference will focus on:

  • The necessity of land for many climate solutions, such as renewable energy, metals for energy efficient solutions, and carbon storage and sequestration;
  • The increasing tension between insecure land tenure for communities reliant on land and climate solutions tied to land, as well as the potential for climate solutions to increase socially inclusive land uses;
  • The consequences of climate-driven land scarcity and climate-solution land demands; and
  • Sustainable and equitable solutions to some of the most challenging land-centric climate change issues, such as relocation of displaced persons and activities

Confirmed Panelists Include:

Natasha Lycia Ora Bannan, Associate Counsel, LatinoJustice (Puerto Rico Legal Defense Fund)

Karol Boudreaux, Chief Program Officer, Landesa

Michael Burger, Executive Director, Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Kaitlin Cordes, Head of Land and Agriculture, Lead on Human Rights, Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

Alex DeSherbinin, Associate Director, Science Applications, Center for International Earth Science Information Network (Columbia University)

Ama Francis, Climate Law Fellow, Sabin Center

Michael Gerrard, Andrew Sabin Professor of Professional Practice, Columbia Law School; Director, Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, Columbia Law School

Dina Ionesco, Head of the Migration, Environment and Climate Change (MECC) Division at the UN Migration Agency (IOM)

Taiko Lemayian, Executive Director, Kenya Community Based Tourism Network (KECOBAT)

Mark Lutes, Senior Advisor, Global Climate Policy, World Wildlife Fund

Jane Meriwas, Founder, Samburu Women’s Trust; UN Fellow

Barron Orr, Lead Scientist, United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification; Professor and Geospatial Extension Specialist, University of Arizona

Satyendra Prasad, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Fiji to the United Nations

Katharina Rall, Researcher, Human Rights and Environment Divison, Human Rights Watch

César Rodríguez-Garavito, Visiting Professor of Clinical Law, New York University School of Law

Cynthia Rosenzweig, Senior Research Scientist, Head of Climate Impacts Group, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies; Co-chair, New York City Panel on Climate Change (NPCC).

Rukka Sombolinggi, Secretary General, Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN)

Sam Szoke-Burke, Legal Researcher, Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

Gerald Torres, Professor of Law, Cornell Law School

Janene Yazzie, Sustainable Development Program Coordinator, International Indian Treaty Council; Co-Convenor, Indigenous Peoples Major Group for Sustainable Development (IPMG)