Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Summit

CU Boulder was a key partner in the development of a set of human rights climate commitments released at COP28 in Dubai. The commitments stem from the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Summit held on campus in December 2022.

A Conference on World Affairs panel April 14 on a rights-based approach to addressing climate change vacillated between optimism at momentum around potential solutions and the grim truth that emissions keep rising and the Earth—and all of humanity—face dire consequences.

The Right Here, Right Now Mini Global Climate Concert on April 13 in Boulder, Colorado, will feature Wesley Schultz of The Lumineers and special guests, including Yola. Proceeds will benefit United Nations Human Rights and musicians impacted by climate change.

In December 2022, CU Boulder co-hosted a 3-day summit addressing human rights and climate change, exploring solutions that every sector of society—government, business, education and individuals—can adopt and act upon. Couldn't attend or want to review? Videos of keynote speeches and panel discussions are now available.

After three days of dynamic and thought-provoking panels and keynotes at the inaugural Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Summit co-hosted by United Nations Human Rights and CU Boulder, the work now begins on moving the talk about the human rights crisis that climate change is to action.

Four panelists at the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Summit, all young women, expressed the same sentiment: Women and youth are most burdened by climate change, but they are also key to solutions needed now.

Day three of the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate summit at CU Boulder was filled with discussions of concrete solutions and urgent calls for collective action to reduce the human toll of the climate crisis today and fend off a catastrophic future.

During a presentation that conjured reflections from Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King Jr., Matt Damon, Cree elders, and the late South African rapper Riky Rick, Naidoo called for a new kind of collective action to push back on what he calls “climate apartheid”—one that includes more voices, communicates more clearly and even incorporates a little joy.

After an at-times emotional first day of the summit Friday, in which panelists from around the globe made the undeniable case that climate change is a humanitarian crisis, speakers on Day 2 focused on accountability, called for action and suggested that a human rights framing is precisely what’s needed to spark action.

On the second day of the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Summit, keynote speaker and former Irish President Mary Robinson took the stage to get people riled up and excited about making change on the climate change front through women-led efforts, such as Project Dandelion.