flying to save the world

Dear Irene Khan

I am delighted to see that Amnesty is at last making explicit the link between human rights and climate change. Perhaps you have done so before, and I have failed to notice. In any case, I have felt for a long time that human rights organisations - and Amnesty in particular - have been remiss in failing to identify climate change as a human rights issue.

In view of your latest appeal to political leaders in the run-up to Copenhagen, and your recognition that "the effects of climate change will be felt most by people experiencing human rights abuses because they are poor or vulnerable" - I wonder if you could reassure me on two specific points relating to your organisation?

The first concerns the number of air flights undertaken by employees of Amnesty International. I am sure you are aware that air travel is by far the most carbon-intensive form of travel, and that the carbon footprint of one international flight per year is approximately equal to an individual's total carbon quota for the whole year, if carbon allowances were to be distributed equally about the globe. The carbon footprint of your employees is almost certainly several magnitudes higher than it should be if the crisis of climate change is to be averted - and if the poor and vulnerable are not to suffer more than they are at the moment. I would like to know whether Amnesty has any plans to address this issue.

Secondly, I have had numerous conversations with employees from numerous human rights organisations - many of them from Amnesty International - in which I have raised the issue of air travel and the carbon footprints of those who claim to be working for the poor and vulnerable. Almost universally, human rights workers do not see climate change - and their own behaviour, particularly in relation to air travel - as a human rights issue. Sadly, this is true for your own employees as well. Indeed, the normal reaction from Amnesty staff to the suggestion that they should at least reconsider their use of air travel has been to laugh it off, or dismiss it out of hand.

Are you happy that this is the message being delivered by your own staff in relation to the links between human rights and climate change - and do you have any plans to address perceptions within your own organisation which are entirely at odds with the urgency of the issue?

I would be very grateful for your response to these two points.

With thanks

[antarchi]