Tales of the Apocalypse: The Child’s Right to a Secure Climate

What is it about?

All rights of children are based on one right, so basic as to be unwritten: the right to a viable earth. Climate degradation ('change') continues to inspire near-future dystopian films, many featuring children. While these show damage done by an increasingly carbon-poisoned atmosphere, they also contribute to a fear-based paralysis of the will to act. Yet children now are increasingly harmed by storms, famines, floods, disease, rising seas and consequent social upheaval, caused or worsened by climate change. Without our concerted action now, the world of their children's world will be much, much worse. Lawsuits are one way of compelling states to fulfill their duties. Intergenerational equity recognizes a social trust existing between those born and those who will be born, imposing a duty on the first to preserve the enjoyment of the earth for the second. This framework widens the ambit of law to include those who do not yet exist. Central to all legal and social strategies is the importance of the child as rights-bearer with the right to be heard in all matters concerning her.

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Why is it important?

Whatever fantasies we may hold about keeping 'our' children safe, there is no safety for any child without a viable earth. Children are not (just) the future. They are citizens, participants, problem-solvers and rights-bearers now, in the present. As adults, they inherit what we leave. If this inheritance is an uninhabitable planet, then that failure is our last, and worst.

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