Human Rights as a Catalyst for Ambitious Climate Action
Transcriber: Amanda Zhu
Reviewer: Peter Van de Ven
We all live on this beautiful
blue-green Earth,
the only planet in the universe
that supports life,
and what a spectacular
diversity of life it is,
from hummingbirds to humpback whales,
from insects whose lifespans
are shorter than a day
to trees that can live
for thousands of years.
Human beings share DNA,
the basic building block of life,
with all of these other species.
We depend on healthy ecosystems
and biodiversity
for the air we breathe,
the water we drink,
the food we eat,
and all of the natural cycles
that make this planet livable.
And yet human beings have unleashed
a tidal wave of destruction
upon the natural world.
We’re living in a climate emergency
where we’re seeing super storms,
droughts, floods, storms of all manner
that are getting more intense
because of climate change.
We’re living in a biological
diversity meltdown,
where a million species
are at risk of extinction.
Air pollution causes
six million deaths every year,
including hundreds of thousands
of children under the age of five.
That’s six million deaths.
It’s more than all the deaths annually
from war, murder, car accidents,
plane crashes, malaria,
and tuberculosis combined.
And this year, of course,
we have the COVID-19 pandemic,
the latest in a flood
of emerging infectious diseases.
Seven of ten of these diseases
are zoonotic diseases,
meaning they’re spilling over
from wildlife and livestock into humans.
This global ecological crisis,
scientists tell us,
we must address
through rapid systemic
and transformative changes.
Indeed, Indigenous peoples and youth
are saying exactly the same thing:
rapid, systemic,
and transformative changes.
And that’s where human rights
comes into the picture.
Because history shows us
that human rights can have
transformative changes on society.
If you think of the abolitionists
who worked to end slavery,
the suffragettes who brought about
enhanced rights for women,
the civil rights movement,
the end of apartheid,
Indigenous peoples,
LGBTQ+ peoples,
persons with disabilities,
all of these social movements
have harnessed the power of human rights
to bring about transformations.
And now we’re using human rights
to improve our environment as well.
Last year, the Supreme Court
of the Netherlands
ruled that the government
of the Netherlands
was violating its citizens' right to life
by not taking adequate action
to address the climate crisis,
and the court ordered the government
to achieve faster,
deeper emissions reductions;
and so this year,
the Netherlands is closing down
a coal-fired power plant
that was built just five years ago.
Greta Thunberg,
the amazing Swedish teenager,
has filed a case before the United Nations
Committee on the Rights of the Child,
with 15 other young people,
arguing that five other nations
are violating their rights
by not addressing the climate crisis.
Earlier this year,
six Portuguese young people
filed a lawsuit
against 33 countries
in the European Court of Human Rights.
And these cases are taking place
all over the world:
Canada, the United States,
Australia, Pakistan, India.
Young people are using their rights
to bring about change
and hold governments accountable
for climate action.
And here’s another
really exciting development.
The emergence of a new human right
called “the right to a safe, clean,
healthy, and sustainable environment,”
a right that has been part
of indigenous customary legal systems
for 1,000 years,
along with environmental responsibilities,
but first entered the Western realm
in 1972,
in the Stockholm Declaration,
at the world’s first Ecosummit.
And since then,
the right to a healthy environment
has been picked up and recognized
by over 150 countries in the world.
And this right to a healthy environment,
people ask me, What does it mean?
It means that we have a right
to breathe clean air.
We have a right
to safe and clean drinking water
and adequate sanitation;
a right to a safe climate;
a right to healthy ecosystems
and biodiversity;
a right to non-toxic environments,
in which we can live,
work, study, and play;
and a right to healthy
and sustainably produced food.
The right to a healthy environment
also comes with a toolbox,
a toolbox that includes the rights
to environmental information,
public participation in decision making,
and access to justice
when your rights
are being threatened or violated.
And the right to a healthy environment,
like all other human rights,
can be a catalyst
for the transformative changes we need
to address the global
environmental crisis.
We’re already seeing incredible changes
in countries like Costa Rica, Slovenia,
Norway, Fiji, and France,
where this right is recognized.
It results in faster reductions
in air pollution,
faster reductions
in greenhouse gas emissions,
and more rapid access
to safe, clean drinking water.
The right to a healthy environment,
like other human rights,
can be a catalyst
for the kinds of changes that we need,
and indeed, that’s what we’re seeing.
And when it comes to the climate crisis,
here’s some more good news.
We know what the solutions are.
We have the technology.
We have the laws and policies we need.
We need to act more quickly.
We need to invest more money.
Let me give you four examples:
renewable energy,
zero-emission vehicles,
net-zero buildings,
and smart cities.
Renewable energy -
we have seen the price of renewables,
like wind and solar,
crash by 90 percent in recent years,
which is great for the planet,
great for human well-being.
The amount of solar electricity
being generated today
is almost 700 times
what it was just 20 years ago.
And a growing number of countries
are getting 97, 98, 99,
or 100 percent of their electricity
from renewables,
like the sun, like wind,
like geothermal, like hydroelectricity.
Norway, Costa Rica, Albania, Namibia,
Iceland, Uruguay, Paraguay,
all of these countries get over 97 percent
of their electricity from renewables.
And net-zero energy buildings
are buildings that are so super-efficient
they reduce energy use by 90 percent
and allow you to generate the remainder
with rooftop solar panels.
And I’m not talking about a handful
of demonstration projects.
This is the law
in the European Union and California,
beginning this year,
which is going to precipitate a revolution
in the construction industry.
When we talk about safe, smart cities,
we’re talking about cities
where it’s easy to walk
or ride your bike or take public transit.
We’ve already got Copenhagen,
where over half of trips
involve riding your bike;
Stockholm, where nine out of ten trips
are either cyclists, pedestrians,
or people taking transit.
And cities like Bogota, Colombia
and Curitiba, Brazil
have really transformed
their citizens’ quality of life
by adding safe, wide
sidewalks, bicycle lanes
and improving public transit.
When we turn to zero-emission vehicles -
because some people
still want to drive cars and trucks -
the progress is amazing.
China leads the world
in terms of numbers
of zero-emission vehicles being sold,
but Norway is the leader
in terms of their proportion.
This year, over 70 percent
of the new vehicles sold in Norway
are zero-emission vehicles,
which is amazing.
And if we stop burning fossil fuels
for transportation
and generating electricity,
we can prevent millions
of premature deaths every year
that are being caused today
by air pollution,
we can prevent hundreds
of millions of cases
of asthma, other respiratory ailments,
heart disease, and cancer.
And the economic opportunities
of the clean energy transition
are extraordinary:
we’re talking about trillions of dollars
from renewable energy,
from energy efficiency,
from energy storage,
from electric vehicles.
My favorite part about being
the United Nations Special Rapporteur
on human rights and the environment
is that I get to meet inspiring,
passionate, eloquent young people
from every continent on Earth.
Sarah, Solomon, Samia, Saher,
Lauren and Meredith
have all spoken to me with one voice,
and I have promised
to convey their message,
which is this:
Governments, businesses, adults,
recognize and respect our right
to live in a healthy environment.
Act now
to take effective and equitable actions
to protect our future
on this miraculously beautiful
blue-green planet
that we are so fortunate to call home.
Thank you,
merci beaucoup,
muchas gracias,
muy to obrigado,
xie-xie,
dhanyavaad.