September 25, 2013
LNS’s Jeremy Brecher and AIDS policy expert Kevin Fisher maintain in a new commentary in NATURE CLIMATE CHANGE that governments have ceased any serious individual or collective effort for climate protection. Yet there is no vehicle or venue to draw together scientists combatting climate change with representatives of the billions of people already or soon to be affected by it. They argue that the International AIDS Conference (IAC) could provide a model for uniting scientists and civil society to advocate for climate protection. The IAC has become the epicenter of a massive global advocacy effort not only for global access to life-saving antiretroviral drugs, but also for the human rights of those living with and affected by HIV. A venue equivalent to the IAC could provide the global climate protection movement one way to focus the world’s attention on the need for a global response to a global problem. The article is available here: Climate Protection can learn from the AIDS movement.