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.