Several international officials praised the success of the international conference on "Climate Change, Human Rights", which was organised by the National Human Rights Committee (NHRC) in co-operation with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, UN Development Programme (UNDP), League of Arab States, and the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI).
India's National Human Rights Commission chairman Arun Kumar Mishra said that the conference dealt with an important issue that has become a real concern and challenge facing not only Qatar, but various countries of the world.
He said that the conference was an important occasion and a pioneering initiative worthy of appreciation and respect, as it brought together experts and researchers in the field of human rights and their counterparts in the field of combating climate change to understand the truth and reality of the various challenges that may be caused by man.
Chair of the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture Dr Susan Jabbour said that the conference was held at a very good time, when the Arab region suffers from many problems related to climate change.
She praised the discussions presented by the conferees over the course of two days.
Human rights advocate and international law researcher Yasser al-Farhan, the founder of the Mizan Human Rights Organisation, said that he participated in the conference to contribute to making serious recommendations based on the human rights approach, in particular the impact of natural disasters.
He referred to this month’s earthquakes that affected Turkiye and Syria.
Al-Farhan called on the specialists to control the use of technology and its objectives, because the main goal of technology should be to secure human life and achieve well-being and a safe life, not to destroy the health infrastructure and affect the lives of the living societies, or to affect the right to life.
The facilitator of the National Centre for Human Rights in Jordan, Dr Reem Abu Dalbouh, said that the NHRC in Qatar excelled in holding such an important conference for the purposes of advancing global action at the level of policies and legislation and introducing human rights concepts in climatic conditions towards effectiveness on the ground.
Director of the Middle East and North Africa Department at the IFDI International Human Rights Organisation, Abdulmajeed Marari, stressed the importance of discussing the international industrial abuse of human rights, and pointed to the close link between climate change and human rights.
He called for rationalising dealing with the climate and industrial development in order to protect both economic goals and human rights.
UN Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders, Michel Forrest, said that the conference is of great importance as it is a launching pad for discussing the challenges caused by climate change, and the appropriate ways to tackle them.
Head of the Middle East and North Africa Department at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mohamed Ali Ensour, said that the importance of the conference lies in the fact that it was the first conference in the Arab region that deals with the effects of climate on human rights and the dimensions of the current global climate crisis on human rights in the Arab region.
