Addressing Climate Change with Diversity of Cultural and Indigenous Views

Topics: Indigenous Knowledge Systems and the Implications of Different Worldviews of Nature on Reaching Agreement on Common Goals for the Mitigation of Climate Change

Chair: Dr Jasdev Rai (SHRGs Director) Duration: Approx. 1 hour 30 Minuets

Host: Cardiff University & the Sikh Human Rights Group

Panellists include but are not limited to:

(1) Professor Hassan Kaya and his expert team from the DSI-NRF Centre in Indigenous Knowledge Systems (CIKS) (South Africa):

CIKS is a partnership of five higher education institutions in South Africa, with its hub at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), Durban, South Africa. The CIKS is a strategic instrument for implementing the National IKS Policy (2004) and facilitates the integration of IKS in higher education as a key component of human capital development and social transformation including sustainable development. It is through its mandated areas of research, postgraduate training, information brokerage, networking and community engagement that CIKS stimulates a paradigm shift in the advancement of the democracy of knowledge systems.

Essentially, the CIKS promotes the recognition of multiplicity of knowledge systems in the global knowledge economy, which are culturally, place-based and complementary in order to mitigate against the dominance of one knowledge system in the global knowledge economy. As a knowledge systems on its own merit, Indigenous Knowledge has its own worldview, epistemology, research methodology and value systems that enriches understanding and management of the environment and climate issues. Therefore, its promotion enables South Africa and Africa as a whole, to enter the global knowledge economy on its own terms rather than those dictated by others.

(2) Dr Darryl Macer founder of the Eubios Ethics Institute:

The Eubios Ethics Institute is a non-profit organization that aims to stimulate the international discussion of ethical issues, and how we may use technology in ways consistent with ‘good life’ (equ-bios), sustainable development and respect for the environment. It aims at an integrated and cross-cultural approach to bioethics and has a global network of members and partners.

The Eubios Ethics Institute was founded by Dr Darryl Macer in 1990 in Christchurch, New Zealand and in Tsukuba Science City, Japan. It was one of the first bioethics centres to be founded in Asia in 1990. In 2005 Bangkok, Thailand was added as a third location. The Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics (EJAIB) is now in its 31st year of open access publication.

Since 1990 the Eubios Ethics Institute has cooperated with many individuals and groups, including UNESCO and UNU, Asian Bioethics Association, American University of Sovereign Nations (AUSN), youth networks, in its ongoing endeavour to empower people to be free thinkers when it comes to changing the world, motivating youth in every country to be global leaders, and honing the skills of human rights and environmental professionals.

(3) Affiliate Members of the Sikh Human Rights Group:

The SHRG has been active in the field of sustainable development and climate change through conferences, networking with likeminded organisations, institutions and movements. We have also held several international conferences with our partners from India, South Africa, Thailand and the UK amongst other countries. The organisation promoted the idea and wrote the booklet on Universalism and Ethics of Environment published by UNESCO. The essential argument is for a pluralistic approach to Environmental and Diversity issues.

Please note that the organiser will be accepting questions for the panellists, via email, up to 17:00 on the 27 April 2021: [email protected]

The organiser needs your help to prepare for the United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP26, in Glasgow (Scotland) this November!

For the first time, the UK will host the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow on 1-12 November 2021. The climate talks will be the biggest international summit the UK has ever hosted; bringing together heads of state, climate experts, young people, civil society, trade unions, faith groups and Indigenous Peoples to agree coordinated action to tackle climate change.

The challenge is not insignificant, but we must step up and work together to save the environment we all live in. The UN Climate Change process is central to that collective action.

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