Intergenerational Climate Change Litigation: The First Climate Communication to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child

SUMMARY This article explores the manner in which climate action at the African regional level protects and promotes children's rights with considerations being had to the principle of intergenerational equity. It establishes that while the concept of intergenerational equity is entrenched in the international and African regional climate change framework for the protection of children, neither the Convention on the Rights of the Child nor the African Children's Charter mentions the concept. However, CRC and the African Children's Charter oblige states to take into consideration the views of children and protect their best interests in climate action (to ensure intergenerational equity) and in achieving a sustainable future. Using a doctrinal research method, the article examines the regional legal and institutional responses to the cascading impacts of climate change and how they safeguard children's rights to a sustainable future. It proceeds to critically analyse child rights-responsive provisions in the African Children's Charter that could potentially enhance the utility of the principle of intergenerational equity in the context of climate action in Africa. The article argues that the principle of intergenerational equity could, in theory, be used as a useful tool for the protection and promotion of the rights and interests of children from climate change impacts. Key words: children's rights; climate change; climate justice; future generations; intergenerational equity

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Climate Change and Children’s Rights

The Oxford Handbook of Children's Rights Law ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190097608.013.23 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 447-473

Author(s):

Christine Bakker

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Human Rights ◽

Integrated Approach ◽

Children's Rights ◽

Children’S Rights ◽

Access To Justice ◽

Fully Integrated ◽

Rights Of The Child ◽

Failure To Protect ◽

The Relationship

The relationship between climate change and children’s rights has been explicitly recognized in the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change. This chapter considers how the enjoyment of children’s rights can be endangered by climate change and critically discusses the potentialities and limitations of children’s access to justice before international and regional human rights bodies to hold states accountable for their failure to protect these rights. The chapter concludes with some key challenges for states, human rights bodies, NGOs, and children themselves, suggesting, inte alia, that states should adopt a fully integrated approach toward climate policies, sustainable development, and their obligations under the Convention on Rights of the Child and that children, with the support of NGOs and other stakeholders, should fully exploit their access to justice and their participatory rights to influence decision-making on climate change that directly affects their current and future lives.

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Constructing Invisible Walls through National and Global Policy

Children ◽

10.3390/children6070083 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 6 (7) ◽

pp. 83 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Stephanie Ettinger de Cuba ◽

Allison Bovell-Ammon ◽

Diana Becker Cutts

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Federal Policies ◽

Global Policy ◽

High Profile ◽

Southern Us ◽

Rights Of The Child ◽

Parallel Increase ◽

The Us ◽

And Migration ◽

The Invisible

Worldwide 37,000 people are forced to flee their homes every day due to conflict and persecution. The factors that lead people to leave their home countries often originate with economic deprivation and violence, escalated to a level that becomes a struggle for survival. Climate change, as it has accelerated over the last three to four decades and negatively impacted natural resources, contributes to a parallel increase in strife and migration. The US response to migration has been to construct an “Invisible Wall” of isolationist and xenophobic policies, many of which are especially harmful to children and their families. The southern US border is perhaps the most high profile location of the Invisible Wall’s construction, fortified by federal policies and a withdrawal from international cooperation. Global reengagement on climate change and migration, US ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and destruction of the Invisible Wall will help to create a world where children can thrive.

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Averting robo-bees: why free-flying robotic bees are a bad idea

Emerging Topics in Life Sciences ◽

10.1042/etls20190063 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 3 (6) ◽

pp. 723-729

Author(s):

Roslyn Gleadow ◽

Jim Hanan ◽

Alan Dorin

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Computer Simulation ◽

Food Security ◽

European Countries ◽

Plant Interactions ◽

Plant Insect Interactions ◽

Native Habitat ◽

Insect Pollinators ◽

Insect Interactions

Food security and the sustainability of native ecosystems depends on plant-insect interactions in countless ways. Recently reported rapid and immense declines in insect numbers due to climate change, the use of pesticides and herbicides, the introduction of agricultural monocultures, and the destruction of insect native habitat, are all potential contributors to this grave situation. Some researchers are working towards a future where natural insect pollinators might be replaced with free-flying robotic bees, an ecologically problematic proposal. We argue instead that creating environments that are friendly to bees and exploring the use of other species for pollination and bio-control, particularly in non-European countries, are more ecologically sound approaches. The computer simulation of insect-plant interactions is a far more measured application of technology that may assist in managing, or averting, ‘Insect Armageddon' from both practical and ethical viewpoints.

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Modelling ecosystem adaptation and dangerous rates of global warming

Emerging Topics in Life Sciences ◽

10.1042/etls20180113 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 3 (2) ◽

pp. 221-231 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Rebecca Millington ◽

Peter M. Cox ◽

Jonathan R. Moore ◽

Gabriel Yvon-Durocher

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Global Warming ◽

Diffusion Rate ◽

Individual Species ◽

Genetic Evolution ◽

Rates Of Change ◽

Rapid Climate Change ◽

Warming Climate ◽

Intraspecies Competition ◽

High Trait

Abstract We are in a period of relatively rapid climate change. This poses challenges for individual species and threatens the ecosystem services that humanity relies upon. Temperature is a key stressor. In a warming climate, individual organisms may be able to shift their thermal optima through phenotypic plasticity. However, such plasticity is unlikely to be sufficient over the coming centuries. Resilience to warming will also depend on how fast the distribution of traits that define a species can adapt through other methods, in particular through redistribution of the abundance of variants within the population and through genetic evolution. In this paper, we use a simple theoretical ‘trait diffusion’ model to explore how the resilience of a given species to climate change depends on the initial trait diversity (biodiversity), the trait diffusion rate (mutation rate), and the lifetime of the organism. We estimate theoretical dangerous rates of continuous global warming that would exceed the ability of a species to adapt through trait diffusion, and therefore lead to a collapse in the overall productivity of the species. As the rate of adaptation through intraspecies competition and genetic evolution decreases with species lifetime, we find critical rates of change that also depend fundamentally on lifetime. Dangerous rates of warming vary from 1°C per lifetime (at low trait diffusion rate) to 8°C per lifetime (at high trait diffusion rate). We conclude that rapid climate change is liable to favour short-lived organisms (e.g. microbes) rather than longer-lived organisms (e.g. trees).

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