What message would you like to share with future generations?

This is the question posed by one of the judges of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), the Honorable Judge Eduardo Ferrer, to young community members during the first round of hearings on the Advisory Opinion on the Climate Emergency and Human Rights held in Bridgetown, Barbados. The room, filled with civil society organizations, stood still, silent, in wonder, full of hope, filled with anticipation of the response that would come. We tried to answer this question within ourselves, but we also asked ourselves: what would we like to say to those who are suffering the most from the climate crisis right now? After nine days of hearings before the Court, and after listening to countless stories from affected communities and the pleas of hundreds of allies and members of civil society, including our own delegation, these are the messages we wish to convey.

We reassure those facing the consequences of the climate crisis today: people around the world are working hard to hold those responsible to account, and authorities are listening.. With 265 written observations and more than 150 oral interventions, this advisory opinion was the most participatory in the history of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. This demonstrates not only the urgency of the issue and the important role of international courts in protecting the rule of law, but also the growing demand for climate justice and leadership from those most affected by the climate crisis.

At the same time, as Carla Baré, an indigenous lawyer from the Coordenação das Organizações Indígenas da Amazônia Brasileira (COAIB), stated in her intervention before the Court in Manaus, we recognize that many “are not environmental defenders by choice,” but because the climate and biodiversity crises endanger their very existence and way of life. Indeed, it is one thing to watch the news, read the newspapers, and hear about the horrors that many are facing as a result of the climate crisis, but it is quite another to be at the forefront of these impacts yourself. As Aurea Sánchez, a member of the El Bosque community, the first community to be recognized as climate-displaced by Mexican authorities, told the Court:

“We lost our home in 2022. Since then, my family and I have been living in a tin house (…) without the necessities and without enough electricity to refrigerate our food or our insulin (…). But we have not only suffered material losses. We have lost our roots, our neighbors, what made us a community (…) and as if that were not enough, it is not over. (…) The sea used to lull us to sleep, but now it wakes us up, it deprives us of sleep. This fear of the future that we feel when we hear about climate change, we live it.”

We also recognize that for thousands of people around the world, climate change is already having catastrophic and, in many cases, irreversible consequences. It is often said that 1.5°C is a “safeguard” that will prevent the most severe and catastrophic consequences of the climate crisis. While it is clear that 1.5°C is a limit that must not be crossed if we are to avoid much more intense and catastrophic consequences than those we are currently experiencing, The widespread violation of human rights and environmental destruction the world is witnessing today due to current levels of global warming are serious enough to prompt ambitious climate action and accountability from governments and businesses.

We affirm that those responsible for this crisis have a name. As Aurea Sánchez told the Court, “For the authorities we are a problem, but it is not our fault.” Research shows that nearly two-thirds of global carbon dioxide and methane emissions since 1751 are attributable to just 90 entities, the big carbon companies. Similarly, more than 80% of deforestation and its emissions, which come from agri-food products, including beef, soy and palm oil production, are caused by a small number of large multinationals.

Moreover, as Dr. Carly Phillips reminded the Court in the oral submission of the Greenpeace International delegation and its allies, “the fossil fuel industry has long been aware of the risks its products pose to humanity. In the 1970s and 1980s, industry scientists correctly predicted the trajectory of global warming,” using that knowledge to their own advantage. However, publicly and to this day, the fossil fuel industry has dramatically increased production of its climate-destroying products and has worked to ensure dependence on fossil fuels by promoting skepticism of climate science, reducing regulation, and spreading disinformation.

After hearing hundreds of testimonies, we hope that one message will be clear to the Court: it is not possible to ensure the effective enjoyment of the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment – ​​or any other human right – without a stable climate. This can only be ensured by stopping the expansion, production, sale and combustion of fossil fuels and by halting the destruction of natural carbon sinks. The window of opportunity to ensure climate stability is closing. As the Greenpeace International delegation and its allies at the Court have called for, the legacy of impunity by governments and big business must end.

In response to the Honorable Judge Ferrer’s question, co-plaintiff Kalālapaikuanalu Winter, one of 14 youth who sued and won a landmark settlement against the Hawaii Department of Transportation over the operation of a transit system in a case supported by Our Children’s Trust and Earthjustice, said: “If I could speak to future generations, I would tell them that there are people fighting for them, that we are fighting for them and that their lives and their rights matter.

We agree with Kalālapaikuanalu Winter. If we could speak to future generations, we would want them to know that we are here to defend their rights; that we are fighting so that they can enjoy a stable climate, one that does not take away their dreams and does not force them to resist and demand justice for the protection of their most fundamental freedoms and rights; that we are fighting to hold those most responsible for this crisis accountable and to set a precedent that private and greedy interests can never again be more important than the existence and well-being of human beings and nature.

What would be You tell future generations?

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Michelle Jonker-Argueta is Senior Legal Counsel for Strategic Litigation at Greenpeace International.

Maria Alejandra Serra is Legal Advisor for Climate Justice and Accountability at Greenpeace International.