How Greta Thunberg Is Coming After Major Countries Over The Climate Crisis
Last Friday, millions of people around the world took to the streets to demand action on climate change. Inspired by 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg, the Global Climate Strike drew international attention to the climate crisis, demanding governments take urgent and effective steps to halt the catastrophic rise in global temperatures.
“For more than 30 years, the science has been crystal clear,” Thunberg said in a condemning speech to the UN Climate Action Summit in New York today.
“How dare you continue to look away and come here saying you are doing enough, when the politics and solutions needed are nowhere in sight?”
Science has clearly demonstrated that the effects of climate change are disastrous for the planet, and all life upon it. Children have repeatedly expressed fear for their futures, which older generations are burning away along with their fossil fuels. Yet, despite much political blustering, substantive action has been slow and stilted.
Now, Thunberg and 15 other young people aged eight to 17 have taken their concerns to their logical conclusion. The group of children from 12 different nations have submitted a formal complaint against five countries to the United Nations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, calling for climate change to be declared a children’s rights crisis.
Filed by international law firm Hausfeld, the petition alleges that the governments of Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany and Turkey are in violation of the Convention through “knowingly causing and perpetuating the climate crisis”. This, the petitioners argue, is a failure to protect children’s right to life, health and culture.
“A scientific consensus shows that the life-threatening risks confronting the petitioners will increase throughout their lives as the world heats up to 1.5°C and beyond,” reads the petition. “If the respondents continue their current emissions pathways, the world would warm enough to threaten the lives of billions of children worldwide.”
16 children – including @GretaThunberg & @AlexandriaV2005 – filed a landmark complaint on the climate crisis to the UN child rights committee.
They’re demanding #ClimateAction now, #ForEveryChild. #UNGA pic.twitter.com/6XtJvquskD— UNICEF (@UNICEF) September 24, 2019
The United States and China are not included in the complaint, despite being widely acknowledged as heavy polluters. This is because they are not among the 45 countries that have ratified both the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the optional protocol, which allows children to directly petition the UN concerning violations.
The children’s complaint will now be evaluated by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which will take responses from the named countries and then make recommendations to them. Whether these countries will act on these recommendations is another matter. After all, they also signed the Paris Agreement pledging to take action on global warming.
The complainants have not asked for any monetary recompense in the petition. They’re merely asking for the same thing that they’ve been requesting for a long time now: Action.
“It is our future and world leaders should hear us,” said 12-year-old petitioner Catarina Lorenzo from Brazil. “If they don’t act to stop the climate crisis it is our future that will be affected.”
