Beyond words on paper: Children's right to a healthy, clean and sustainable environment
“How far must we go for those who hold decision-making power to remember that the future we will inherit depends precisely on the decisions they chose not to make? What will it take for decision-makers to realise that climate justice is about children’s rights, too?” – Santiago Flores Medina
Two years ago, I found myself at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Egypt listening to Francisco Vera Manzanares. At the time, Francisco was a 13-year-old climate justice activist who, after being forced to flee his native Colombia for defending the land, had become a beacon of hope in the climate movement. Paradoxically, his presence at COP27 was deeply provocative for country negotiators, whose priority lists rarely included the words "children's rights."
But for those of us who had crossed the Sinai Peninsula with the firm conviction of demanding justice for children, our dreams of independence, emancipation and liberation were reflected in each of his words. They were inspiring. Heartening. An embrace of solidarity.
Involuntary reactions had shook me. Francisco was reaffirming that the fight for intergenerational equity - a fight that often felt so lonely and marginal in my own country of Mexico - was a fight worth taking to the international stage. At the time, I was the only Mexican child delegate at COP. I was 17-years-old and, just like Francisco, I had left my country, my family and my friends to demand the recognition of children's rights at the world’s most important Climate Summit.
When his speech had ended, however, the applause for Francisco was followed by a deep silence that weighed heavier on me than his words. Outside, far from the cameras, the plenary halls and the inspiring speeches, the world had not changed.
It was then that I had one of the most important revelations of my life:
How far must we go for those who hold decision-making power to remember that the future we will inherit depends precisely on the decisions they chose not to make? What will it take for decision-makers to realise that climate justice is about children’s rights, too?
For decades, climate policy has been shaped without taking children's voices into account. Deep down, there persists the idea that children don't know, don't understand and have nothing valuable to contribute to the discussion. From a young age, we have been taught that we must wait to become adults in order to make life’s "big decisions."
But how can we ask children to wait when there are children who will not live to become adults, because of the decisions that exclude them?
As of 2025, more than half of the world's children live in countries at very high risk of disasters, with the Global Majority living in the South being the most severely affected. According to UNICEF’s Children’s Climate Risk Index, 920 million children are highly exposed to water scarcity, 820 million to heatwaves, 400 million to tropical cyclones and 240 million to coastal flooding. Numbers, numbers and more numbers. Behind each of these numbers are stories that remain untold - and likely never will be.
As climate activists, we are left to fill-in the gaps. What is the story of a child who died of dehydration in Sub-Saharan Africa, of a girl suffocated by heat in Latin America, of a teenager swept away by floods in South Asia? And what of the millions and millions of children silenced by an ocean of our leaders’ inactions?
Under the premise of settling the historical debt owed to children, in 2021, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child published General Comment No. 26: a declaration that consulted the voices of children from 121 countries. The General Comment recognised, for the first time, that children have the lawful right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.
This UN declaration is based on three fundamental principles of human rights. First, the principle of interdependence, which affirms that a healthy environment - besides being a human right itself - is a necessary condition for the enjoyment of other rights. Second is the principle of intergenerational equity, which demands an early response to environmental threats whose consequences may jeopardise the human rights of future generations. And finally, the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, which emphasises the importance of international cooperation to finance the repair of damages in the regions most affected by climate change
These words on paper still need firm advocates to bring them to life. Recognising a right is not enough - especially when those on the front lines of the climate crisis are still children and young people. That is why children are shouting. Until the age of 18, I was one of those voices. We are in the streets of our own countries, as well as in the international summits far from them. We are in the territories ravaged by extractivism, violence, and land dispossession.
We are shouting:
No more empty promises.
In a world where promises have been designed by adults to be broken, children have become the firmest defenders of the truth. Young people are the architects of our social imagination, where the word "no" is never an option. Children know that standing on the right side of history is not a choice; it is an obligation we owe to each other.
If I have learned anything from Francisco's words over the past three years, it is that hope does not lie in the promises of our political leaders - or even the speeches at major Climate Summits. Hope lies with us. Hope is the power we hold when we choose to confront the uncomfortable, and we refuse to remain silent.
The fight for climate justice is not a fight for tomorrow. It is a fight for now. It is a fight for all of us.
We cannot afford to see children merely as passive victims of the climate crisis. Children are agents of change. As adults, we must be, too. Because, in the end, it’s not just about saving the planet. It’s about saving each other.
And the time to act is now.
Santiago Flores is a 20-year-old climate justice activist and children’s rights defender. He is the founder of Saving Tuvalu, previously served as Mexico’s Climate Adviser to the Child Rights International Network and is currently pursuing a double degree in Law and International Relations at the Monterrey Institute of Technology. Deeply committed to the transformative power of social change, Santiago has made it his life mission to reimagine political systems in order to ensure the liberation of all peoples.