Towards a healthy planet: Implementing the Right to a Clean, Healthy and toxic-free Environment
Thursday, January 26, 2023, 11:00 a.m. CET
Climate and environmental crises have devastating impacts on the well-being and future of children. Environmental hazards take 1,7 million children’s lives each year. Many children and young people are forced to leave their homes, suffer from diseases, early marriage, exploitive labour or miss out on education. Their future is at stake. We must protect the rights of children and young people for a clean environment to save lives.
With 161 votes in favour and eight abstentions, the UN-General Assembly adopted a historic resolution in July 2022, declaring access to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, as a universal human right. The UNGA calls upon States, international organizations, businesses, and other stakeholders to “scale up efforts” to ensure a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment for all.
In 2023 the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child will publish its General Comment no. 26 on Children’s Rights and the Environment with a Special Focus on Climate Change.
Children and young people all over the world are standing up for their environmental rights and calling on governments to take action on the environmental crisis. 7416 children from 103 countries shared their views and ideas in a global consultation that was designed with members of the General Comment No. 26 Children’s Advisory Team.
In anticipation of publishing General Comment No. 26 in 2023, we will discuss the UN initiatives on protecting children and young people against environmental hazards and how they affect how we work towards strengthening the rights of children and youth and ways forward at our webinar.
In our series Forward Thinkers webinars, we deepen our intergenerational dialogue and address the nexus of peace and hazardous chemicals.
Let’s make an important step in building the planet as a safe and just home for all of us already now.
Speakers:
- Moderator: Jeffrey Opoku, Youth:Present representative, Youth Sustainability Leader
- Bea Albermann, Youth:Present Representative
- María Fernanda Espinosa-Garces, Councillor, World Future Council, Former President of the UN-General Assembly, Executive Director of GWL Voices
- Neshan Gunasekera, Councillor, World Future Council, International Lawyer and Educationist
- Raina Ivanova, Youth:Present Representative, Climate and Child Rights advocate
- Alexandra Wandel, Chair, Management Board, World Future Council
- Alyn Ware, Councillor, World Future Council, PNND Global Coordinator