I was in Geneva, Switzerland to attend the International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights. I was invited to speak last March 5 at the debate after the screening of This Changes Everything by Avi Lewis. It was interesting, having been the only woman and from a developing country in the panel. I was with Martin Benson, climate scientist, former member of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and who is now a director of Institute for Environment Sciences of the University of Geneva. I was also with Remy Prud’homme, a professor emeritus at the University of Paris.
Prof. Remy was a climate skeptic and I found his logic, well, illogical. With all due respect.
So here I talked for the first time in front of a French audience about climate justice. I became emotional when Prof. Remy said that statistics say that lives in developing countries have improved over the years, which is why climate change isn’t true. So I told him, teary eyed, not to reduce our pain and suffering to mere numbers. Because we are not numbers, we are people.
The next day, I had another talk in Meyrin, a city outside of Geneva again after the screening of climate change.
But not only that, I also got to join Human Rights Tattoo, a project that aims to tattoo all 6773 letters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on 6773 people. I got 2857th letter, the letter “t” under article 16 of the UDHR, on equal rights to marriage.
Of course I am super happy about it! I love tattoos and human rights and what a perfect combination this project is!
Renee Karunungan 