Right to healthy environment

Excellencies, friends, colleagues,

Thank you for the opportunity to join this important discussion today.

As you all know, on 8 October 2021, the UN Human Rights Council adopted resolution 48/13 recognizing that a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is a human right.

The resolution acknowledges an ever-present reality for all of us.

The air we breath, the food we eat, the water we drink, indeed, our health, wellbeing and survival all depend on a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.

In addition to recognition by the Human Rights Council, more than 150 countries recognize and protect the right to a healthy environment through their constitutions, national laws, judiciaries or ratification of international instruments.

Yet, in recent consensus-based negotiations of the conclusions of the Commission on the Status of Women, the meeting of the subsidiary bodies to the Convention on Biological Diversity and the political declaration for UNEP@50, several governments spoke against inclusion of explicit references to this right.

Human Rights Council resolution 48/13 unequivocally recognizes the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment for all people. It also invites governments to further consider the matter at the UN General Assembly.

By recognizing the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, the General Assembly could catalyze more ambitious, coherent and coordinated action to protect the environment. General Assembly recognition of the rights to water and sanitation achieved this.

The word »recognition« is significant here.

Human rights may be recognized by governments, but they do not emanate from governments.

They are rights we have simply because we exist as human beings.

They are inherent to us all.

As with the rights to water and sanitation, there can be no doubt that a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is a human right.

However, recognition of rights at all levels of law and policy creates better conditions for action and accountability.

In this case, this is not only important but urgent.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has placed the triple planetary crisis of nature loss, pollution and climate change at the top of the human rights challenges of our era.

An estimated one in six premature deaths are caused by pollution. Tens of millions of people are displaced each year by climate change. Biodiversity loss threatens the collapse of entire ecosystems.

We need the international community to act with single-minded purpose and solidarity to deploy every possible resource to protect and fulfil the human right to a healthy environment.

Failure to rise to this challenge is not an option.

Denial is not an option.

Delay is not an option.

The latest reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change make it clear that these pathways lead to catastrophe.

This is our reality.

The UN system has called for action and has been called to action.

The Secretary General's Call to Action for Human Rights brings together senior UN officials on human rights, the environment, development and children, among others, to advance the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.

Unfortunately, continuing harmful practices, insufficient action, and inaction by Governments and other duty-bearers with respect to protection of the environment threaten the progress needed to protect the environment for all people.

Those who have contributed the least to environmental degradation are often those at highest risk of experiencing its worst human rights impacts.

Environmental degradation disproportionately affects the poor, women and girls, indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities, and children, among others.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has recognized that for people in vulnerable situations, a rights-based and inclusive approach to environmental action can make a real difference in their lives while also supporting better environmental outcomes.

This is the approach we need to achieve sustainable development that protects the environment and fulfils all human rights.

The Human Rights Council's recognition of the right to a healthy environment generated important momentum for this approach and further recognition can magnify this impact.

Ultimately, however, we need more action to realize this right for all people.

All around the world, OHCHR and its partners are working to advance the human right to a healthy environment, enhance the protection of environmental human rights defenders, support rights-based environmental action by UN Country Teams, raise awareness of the negative human rights impacts of environmental degradation and elevate the voices of those most affected.

I encourage your discussions today to also look beyond recognition toward the action we need to protect the environment for current and future generations.

OHCHR looks forward to working with you in this regard.

Thank you.