Human Rights Day

Happy Human Rights Day! Observed every year on 10 December, the 2021 theme is Equality.

What’s Human Rights Day?

Human Rights Day celebrates the day the United Nations General Assembly adopted, in 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The document states the rights every human being is entitled to. It’s the most translated document in the world.

The day is an opportunity to reflect on where we are as a global community, in delivering those rights universally.

Cool, but what’s that got to do with natural gas?

In 2015, United Nations Member States adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to help deliver those universal human rights in global partnership.

“The Sustainable Development Goals are the blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. They address the global challenges we face, including poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, peace and justice.”

Grounded in international human rights law, the 17 SDGs cover everything from ending poverty and hunger, to ensuring economic growth and opportunities, to protecting our environment and acting on climate change.

The oil and gas industry has mapped its operations to the attainment of SDGs and found a role as an essential partner to achieving them.

Explain how?!

IPIECA partnered with the UN Development Programme and the International Finance Corporation to find how the industry could align with SDGs.

Their report, Mapping the oil and gas industry to the Sustainable Development Goals: An Atlas, facilitates understanding of how the industry will support achievement of SDGs and act as a partner to meet the challenges they present.

Looking at Goal 2 (‘end hunger’), for example, the atlas explains that natural gas is a raw material for fertilisers and pesticides, and supplies energy for all stages of food production including powering agricultural machinery, refrigeration, and food transportation.

It really gets into the weeds, identifying stakeholders and their roles in extending an industry contribution sustainable development. Goal by goal, the report identifies how integrating operational practices can see gas companies make useful, tangible difference in achieving them.

Want to learn more about Human Rights Day? This quote from Eleanor Roosevelt is quite moving.

“Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home — so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. […] Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.”

-Eleanor Roosevelt

But if you’re more of a facts, figures and hashtags person, you can head to https://www.un.org/en/observances/human-rights-day to learn more and get involved.