By: Kathleen Mahoney
PDF Version: Bishop Tutu: His Challenge to the Legal Profession on the Morals and Ethics of Climate Change
Conference Commented On: As Long as the Rivers Flow: Coming Back to the Treaty Relationship in our Time, Fort McMurray, AB, May 31-June 1, 2014
I was privileged this past weekend to hear Desmond Tutu speak at a conference on climate change and treaty rights in Fort McMurray Alberta (see the program here). His remarks were directed at climate change in general and the Alberta oil sands development in particular. He clearly made the link between carbon emissions from the oil sands and climate change. He then situated the issue of climate change squarely in a moral and ethical dimension. He argued that consideration of this dimension must play a central role in legal and policy decisions about responses here in Canada and around the world.
It is clear that Tutu’s ethical and moral concerns touch on fundamental rights and the very nature of justice and equity. Distributive justice, compensatory justice, procedural justice and human rights are all implicated. We heard from many speakers at the conference that in the Canadian context, First Nations bear the brunt of resource development when their treaty rights, food sources, water and cultures are compromised by climate change and environmental damage.