Women and Children waiting for the water truck in Ethiopia near the border with Kenya. Unicef/Lemma/Flickr. Some rights reserved.It was in Kenya’s Turkana County, near the border with Ethiopia, where one of the earliest human skeletons, dating back more than one million years, was found. But climate change is threatening the residents, and it illustrates how the global response to climate change should emphasize human rights.
Turkana is a desperately poor region, among the poorest in Kenya, hammered by conflict and crippled by drought. It is home to the world’s largest desert lake, and the Turkana people, an indigenous community that has long persevered in an inhospitable landscape, herding animals and fishing. Cyclical droughts and high birth rates are longstanding challenges to the region’s development. Added to that are two more recent threats: large-scale development projects across the border in Ethiopia that threaten to siphon off much of the water feeding Lake Turkana, and climate change, which is exacerbating competition for scarce grazing lands and water.
Turkana is an important case to examine as governments around the world finalize a new agreement on climate change. Two months before governments are planning to convene in Paris to adopt the treaty, there is little consensus. How the future agreement will ensure the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions that are the cause of climate change is still uncertain. There is no agreement yet either on how basic human rights, including the rights to water, food, and health, will be protected, and help for those most vulnerable people be provided.
