Young Delegate 18Chiara Gisinti
As Youth Delegates of Italy, we welcome the Special Rapporteur’s report and its recommendations, which highlight crucial steps we must take to address the environmental crisis we are facing.
Although the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is recognized as a human right, we are still forced to drink polluted water, eat contaminated food and breathe toxic air. We need to ensure the practical realization of this right, and while the report underscores some improvements, for instance through landmark judicial rulings, there is still far more that needs to be done.
We cannot afford to maintain an economic model that prioritizes only short-term profit over long-term sustainability. Moving forward requires a transformative, rights-based shift in governance to ensure that younger generations do not inherit an uninhabitable planet, placing the need for a healthy environment at the core of all national, regional and global policymaking.
As young people, we are leading the efforts to make the right to a healthy environment a reality, we are pushing for greener technologies and sustainable lifestyles and demanding a planet-friendly future. Yet, many of us are left out of decision-making processes that directly impact our lives and the life of our planet, even though the report points out that meaningful participation in environmental decisions is a procedural component of the right to a healthy environment itself.
Considering all the above and that the report highlights the conflict between current models and the transformative solutions needed, our question is: how can international economic and trade frameworks be restructured to align with the right to a healthy environment and how can we ensure that young people are meaningfully included in this transition? Additionally, what further steps can be taken to promote stronger global and regional cooperation in advancing the implementation of this right, as well as improving the assessment of its progress?
Thank You.
