September 11, 2019–Make a healthy climate a legal right that extends to future generations (Economist)

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This is the winning essay of The Economist’s Open Future Essay Competition 2019 on the question “What fundamental economic and political change, if any, is needed for an effective response to climate change?” The winner is Larissa Parker, a law student at McGill University in Montreal. The jury selected the essay from 2,400 entries by people aged 16-25.

In March 2019 I joined over 100,000 young people to strike in the streets of Montreal. We claimed the downtown area for hours, demanding increased climate action from our decision-makers. Children of all ages attended, marching for their right to grow up in a healthy world. In the last decade the not-in-my-backyard phenomenon has turned into a not-in-my-lifetime one. After attending the United Nations climate conferences as a youth delegate for years, I have watched governments around the world put short-term economic gain before the long-term well-being of the planet and my generation. Although 195 nations committed to rapidly reduce greenhouse-gas emissions to keep the global average temperature well below 2°C relative to pre-industrial levels, many countries are nowhere near achieving their targets. In Canada, for example, current policy decisions have resulted not only in no reductions, but an increase in greenhouse-gas emissions. The latest national inventory report indicated that emissions rose by 8m tonnes from 2016 to 2017, an increase of about 1%.

This accountability problem is rampant across the world, yet few legal systems are equipped to address it. Although climate litigation is becoming a new front for climate action, with hundreds of cases arising around the world, they are limited in scope. Today, for the most part, only current generations have legal standing to sue; and to do so, they have to prove the impacts that they have experienced or are experiencing. This is problematic in the context of climate change because the effects of greenhouse-gas emissions take decades to manifest themselves. This renders it incredibly difficult to contest today’s polluting activities as their impacts have not been felt yet. It is also why governments feel little pressure to meet their commitments or take strong action. I came to law school with high hopes of changing this. One solution is to recognise the rights of future generations to a healthy environment, which would open the door for lawsuits on climate inaction and keep governments accountable to their commitments under international law. If a government does not take sufficient action on climate change now, then it is not doing enough to prevent harm to future generations, thus violating their rights to a healthy environment. To view the full article visit the Economist.