Imagine
“Introducing climate justice into international law is the step that we need, because it means that courts will have to formally recognise the ways in which climate change impacts on human rights and human lives. It means that the crisis can no longer be ignored, or that mitigation can be kicked down the road. It will have to be dealt with, and not just in the short-term or with half-hearted efforts: it’s going to help close the gap between our future and our present. It’s going to save lives.” – Niamh Purcell
Close your eyes for a moment, and imagine.
Imagine a woman standing arm-in-arm with her husband outside their home that’s been blown apart, piece by piece, because of a storm that everyone could see coming and no one could stop. She remembers the day they married, when her husband swept her up into his arms and carried her across the threshold, and they were ready to begin their lives together. She looks at that threshold now and knows she never could have pictured their lives turning out like this.
Imagine a young child sitting at a chipped wooden table in the sweltering heat. He’s waiting for food while his parents stand worriedly in the corner of the kitchen, speaking in low voices. Their livelihoods depended on crops that have failed due to droughts and heat. (How could anything survive here?) They don’t know how to feed him, let alone themselves. There will be another night where sleep won’t come, hunger gnawing at the boy’s stomach - another night of hopelessness, and despair at the unknown.
Imagine a teenager shouting into a loudhailer, crying for change. Their call echoes among a crowd of like-minded individuals, pleading. “We can make the world more equitable.” There are chants and songs – but that teenager has seen it all before. It’s the same story, like a record that’s stuck, always with the same outcome: whatever the change, it’s not enough.
But the truth is… we all know we aren’t imagining anything at all. Events like this are happening in real time.
Since the 1970s, when the world’s scientists first noticed a change in the trajectory of our earth’s climate, real people have suffered consequences more harrowing than anyone could have imagined. Real people lose their homes. Real people go hungry. Real people are dying. We just don’t necessarily see it if we’re living in the Global North, and that makes it too easy to disregard. It’s also a hard truth to face – but it’s one we must accept if we want real (and lasting) change.
After all, we all have a part to play in preventing the climate crisis. That’s another hard truth to face, but it’s one that we have to be honest about. How many of us truly consider climate change a very real, very current threat to the human race? How many of us have told ourselves that we won’t be around for the worst of it, that the rest of our lives somehow won’t collide with that dark and dystopian future? Alternatively, how many of us think that, because we’re just one person, our own actions won’t truly make a difference? Before I became an activist, I certainly used to think that way. If only it were true.
Because here’s the truth: that dystopian future we’ve been told about is actually our present.
We’ve already surpassed the 1.5 degree limit once last year - the tipping point that scientists and experts are pleading with us to adhere to, to stay below, to fear. (We’ve gone and done it!) That woman I asked you to imagine whose house was blown away is already wandering around the remains of a town she used to love. There are so many families, particularly in developing regions, who go hungry day after day. And there are certainly so many young people who’ve pleaded tirelessly for a better future, now growing silent because they’re beginning to think that maybe that future just doesn’t exist.
I have been one of them – and I’m asking you, now, if you can imagine yourself as a part of the solution.
Our solution
Just hear me out.
In 2022, the Right To A Healthy Environment at the Council of Europe Campaign began. Now, in 2025, it’s about to be decided whether the legal right to a healthy environment should be widely adopted by the Council of Europe - and we need as much support as we can get.
The main focuses of the campaign are, very simply put, the following:
Legal recognition of the Right to a Healthy Environment as a fundamental human right as a protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights (much the same as the right to food, water, shelter, etc.);
The ability for this right to be presented in a court of law as a fundamental human right, and for it to be treated as such, as the International Court of Justice reiterated in its Advisory Opinion on climate change;
A standardised framework across all of Europe for the implementation of this right in a legal capacity, so that all European countries are in agreement about how and when this right should be argued
Facilitate access to justice for citizens in all European countries corresponding to climate-related issues – meaning not only that those presently affected can seek compensation in a courtroom, but also that we can prevent more people from being affected in the future;
Prove to our young people that their demands for justice and change have not been ignored, ensuring that they can further their impact in the fight for climate mitigation with the support of a recognised legal framework for climate justice.
If this right is adopted into the European human rights framework, it fills a huge gap in the human rights legal system: it formalises our fight for that equitable, justice-based future that climate change threatens. It makes sure that governments are accountable for making our world safe. It also shows our youth that even though this fight may last for decades, it’s a fight that’s backed by substance. It’s a chance to stand together, and prove how much we care about everyone and everything around us. It gives everyone, at any age, in any country you can think of, the chance to have the life they deserve.
Introducing the right to a healthy environment into the European human rights framework is the step that we need, because it means that courts will have to formally recognise the ways in which climate change impacts on human rights and human lives. It means that the crisis can no longer be ignored, or that mitigation can be kicked down the road. It will have to be dealt with, and not just in the short-term or with half-hearted efforts: it’s going to help close the gap between our future and our present. It’s going to save lives.
A woman who lost her home will be able to fight in a courtroom for compensation, with a legal instrument in place that means she can’t be turned away. She can begin to rebuild her life – and perhaps her partner may be able to carry her across a new threshold, where they can make new memories. Everyone will have the right to a safe place to live.
Or a starving boy will have better access to nutritious food, as their family. He can thrive, and flourish, and instead of sleepless nights with a tummy groaning to be fed, he can sleep soundly, as a child should be able to. Because everyone will have the right to food.
As for our youth, the implementation of the right to a healthy environment will also show worn down generations that we’re serious about their future - that we’re serious about them. Their cries for change were heard. This right will hand our youth the opportunity to fight for their own world, to convince their country representatives to take real climate action,and will ensure that, as long as this crisis exists, they will never be ignored. It will ensure that the biggest stakeholders in the future are able to shape that future themselves into how it should be: equitable. It could even renew young people’s belief in their ability to shape the world.
But, importantly, I think the Right to a Healthy Environment at the Council of Europe campaign itself has already shown that we’re willing to work together to enhance each other’s lives. I think the ratification of this right will also open further opportunities for cooperation between governments, between states, and between the young and the old. I think it is actually the start of the future that we’ve all been waiting for. The future that we all deserve.
At the end of the day, when we imagine any meaningful future, it must be one of equality - and to me, equality just means loving everyone else around us enough to make sure they're not only safe, but truly thriving.
Our humanity
I think all of the negativity about climate change can sometimes make it hard for us to see that we are already a solution for our planet - that our actions can, and do, matter. Yes, it’s very difficult at times to see that we can make any kind of difference. As individuals, it’s easy to feel insignificant, and we don’t come together as often as we should
But I’ll let you in on a little secret. There’s one simple thing that lives in all of us – something that’s such an innate part of each of us that we forget that it’s there. If we could only remember this truth, it would make our collective fight for social justice that much easier. The best part is, we were born with it.
It’s our humanity.
We are each a wonderful, unique, driven solution in and of ourselves. We’re all different, but we’re also all the same. We each can feel so deeply, just like everyone around us can feel. For that reason alone, each and every one of us is connected.
Every person on the planet has this in common: our ability to feel. Nothing else matters. Our shared compassion binds us, and nothing should stand in the way of that. That is what makes us human. It makes us all the same – it means that no one person is better than another, because our souls are all made of the same substance. The only things that divide us are what we allow to be important - wealth, social status, proximity, etc. This means we can also choose to let them go.
What I’m asking readers to do is to give yourself permission to feel, even for a moment, the true and crushing weight of this crisis - the weight of the lives that have been lost. I’m asking you to realise how scared millions of people must be, trying to live through this catastrophic conditions - and then remember that there is nothing to make them different from us, except for the fact that they live somewhere in a region we don’t. I’m asking you to be honest about the fact that, if it was you in that position, you’d want someone to help you. Let those feelings be heard. Let your empathy shine!. All we have to do is come together and say “enough”.
So that millions of people can have somewhere safe to sleep.
So that millions of children don’t have the blood-chilling look of defeat in their eyes. So that our youth don’t lose hope.
Nelson Mandela once said “to deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity”. In 1948, when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was ratified following the Holocaust, the signatories of that document envisioned the same world that we ourselves are fighting for. Of course, we know that vision hasn’t always worked out - but we can view this very step towards legalised climate justice as an opportunity to renew that vow to justice.
At the end of the day, no matter who we are and where we’re from, we all have the same rights - and if we keep going down this same road, we will all have the same bleak future, too. So why are we not striving as much as we can for that golden, glittering future that everyone not only has always wanted, but that everyone has always deserved?
The implementation of the right to a healthy environment in Europe would be a chance for everyone, everywhere, to live beautiful, safer lives. We have a real, tangible opportunity – right now – to take the future into our hands, and mold it so that it looks more like the one we see when we close our eyes. Wouldn’t it be great to say that, instead of hesitating like we’ve so often done, we finally stood up and grabbed that opportunity, and said ‘this is our time?’
Imagine that.