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SHEILA WATT-CLOUTIER

Sheila Watt-Cloutier's pioneering advocacy work has put a human face on the impact of global climate change—especially in the Arctic, where its effects are felt more immediately and dramatically than anywhere else. "We're already living this reality,” says the Nobel Peace Prize nominee. “We're the early warning system for the rest of the world.”

Sheila Watt-Cloutier is in the business of changing public opinion into public policy. As attention from world governments turns to the Arctic—considered the health barometer for the planet—she has emerged as a leading voice on the interconnectedness between climate change and human rights. Her advocacy has broken barriers of perception, adding an important human dimension to the environmental, economic and political discourse that dominates debate on climate change.

Originally from Kuujjuaq, Nunavik, in Northern Quebec and currently based in Iqaluit, Nunavut, Watt-Cloutier was an elected political spokesperson for the Inuit for over a decade. (For the Inuit, climate change is a stark reality, one that is undermining the ecosystem they depend on for survival.) From 1995 to 2002, Watt-Cloutier was the Canadian President of the Inuit Circumpolar Council (the ICC), which represents the more than 155,000 Inuit of Canada, The United States, Greenland, and Russia. Her negotiations in this role led to the Stockholm Convention, the breakthrough global treaty banning POPs ( persistent organic pollutants), which contaminate the Arctic food chain. In 2002, she was elected the International Chair of the ICC, a position she held until 2006. From 1995 to 1998, she was also Corporate Secretary of Makivik Corporation, set-up under the 1975 James Bay and Northern Quebec Land Claims Agreement.

In 2005, along with 62 Inuit hunters, women and elders, Watt-Cloutier filed a petition with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. They alleged that the unchecked greenhouse gases of the United States violated Inuit human rights as guaranteed by the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man. It was a landmark case—the world's first international legal action on climate change. In March, 2007, she testified before the Commission during their extraordinary first hearing on the links between climate change and human rights.

An Officer of the Order of Canada, Sheila Watt-Cloutier is a recipient of a UN Lifetime Achievement Award for Human Development, and a UN Champion of the Earth Award. She has also been honoured with the Global Green USA Award for International Environmental Leadership; the Northern Medal, given by the Governor General of Canada; the inaugural Global Environmental Award from the World Association of Non-Governmental Organizations; and an Aboriginal Achievement Award for Environment. She has also won the Sophie Prize, and the Rachel Carson Prize. In 2007, she was publicly nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

What does Sheila Watt-Cloutier talk about?

The Right to Be Cold: The Global Significance of Arctic Climate Change

"In the past two decades, Inuit across the Arctic have reported profound changes to their environment and their wildlife. Melting sea ice, rapidly eroding coastlines, dangerously unpredictable weather patterns and changes to wildlife are all bringing great challenges to the Inuit hunting culture. Further, the Human Right to life, to health, to subsistence, to safety and security are all being violated as large countries emitting green house gases continue their business as usual. These violations of Human Rights are very much connected to the World’s other vulnerable regions: as the Greenland ice sheet melts into the sea, the waters rise around the small island developing states and the low-lying coastal nations. Even as the northern communities struggle to cope with these changes, Inuit are now faced with a renewed interest in the Arctic from a world hungry for its resources and newly opening shipping routes."

"To address climate change, and to ensure that development across the North is conducted carefully, wisely and with balance, our world must re-connect around our shared Arctic, our shared atmosphere, ultimately our shared humanity. Individuals, communities, corporations, industries and nations must realize that the challenges in the Arctic faced by the depleting ice are connected to the cars we drive, the industries we support, the disposable world we have become and the policies we create. Changing public opinion to public policy is the route we must now take and we must now speak environment, foreign and economic policy in the same breath.”