This is a video interview of Mary Robinson, the first female president of Ireland and former U.N. high commissioner for human rights at the U.N. Climate Change Conference COP18 in Doha . Robinson heads the Mary Robinson Foundation–Climate Justice. “I believe that this is the biggest human rights issue of the 21st century, and I believe that it’s a way of addressing issues of development and issues of tackling poverty,” Robinson says. “It means that we have to take into account the injustice of the fact that it’s the fossil fuel growth in the United States, Europe and other developed parts of the world, which has contributed to undermining development of very poor people, undermining their livelihoods. … We can actually change the quality of life for both rich and poor countries in a way that doesn’t undermine happiness and good livelihoods.”
