Testimony at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights Advocating for Best Available Climate Science to Protect Childrens’ Right
July 12, 2024
On April 23, 24, and 25, 2024, in Bridgetown, Barbados, Kalālapaikuanalu Winter, a 20-year-old Native Hawaiian and youth plaintiff in Navahine v. Hawai‘i Department of Transportation and attorney Kelly Matheson with Our Children’s Trust, along with the backing of 21 youth and 18 pediatric associations—testified before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) about the harrowing effects of climate change on children across the globe and what humanity must do to stop the crisis.
Below is the testimony at the Public Hearing on the Request for Advisory Opinion OC-32 “Climate Emergency and Human Rights”.
Introduction, Kelly Matheson
Honorable Members of the Court and respected members of the audience, my name is Kelly Matheson. I am the Deputy Director of Global Climate Litigation at Our Children's Trust. I am here with Kalālapaikuanalu Winter, one of the 21 youth signatories on the Amicus brief we submitted along with the University Network for Human Rights and Centro Mexicana para la Defensa del Medio Ambiente. We are here with the support of 18 pediatric associations representing over 1 million medical professionals in more than 120 countries.
I now give the floor to Ms. Winter.
Stories of Climate Harm, Kalālapaikuanalu Winter
Navahine v. Hawai‘i Department of Transportation youth plaintiffs. Photo by Robin Loznak
Honorable Members of the Court, Aloha mai kākou o wau ʻo Kalālapaikuanalu Winter. Hello everyone, my name is Kalālapaikuanalu Winter. I am 20 years old and a Native Hawaiian kiaʻi ʻāina, which means land and water protector. Along with being one of the 21 youth signatories, I am the oldest plaintiff in a climate case in Hawaiʻi in which I and 13 children aged 9 through 18 argue that the Hawaiʻi Department of Transportation is illegally emitting excessive levels of greenhouse gases, which is violating our state constitutional rights. I am here today to fight for the rights of children and all future generations to live healthful, safe, and happy lives. To let the children be children.
I am a child of the lands of Hāʻena Kauaʻi and Haleʻiwa Oʻahu. My community is deeply connected to our lands and waters, and we rely on them to survive. The climate crisis affects our native lifeways every day. It impacts our Indigenous traditions of feeding ourselves from the ocean as we always have. Rising ocean temperatures have caused mass coral bleaching and reduced the abundance of limu, an edible seaweed, both key components of healthy reefs. Every time I go into our ocean, it breaks my heart to see how the climate crisis has devastated our marine ecosystems. Sea level rise has eroded the roads that we rely on. Increasingly frequent and dangerous storms threaten our very survival.
In 2018, my community experienced 55 inches, or 1.5 meters, of rainfall in less than 24 hours. It was the one of the most extreme flooding events in Hawai‘i’s recorded history, and set a U.S. record for 24-hour rainfall. This climate crisis-induced “rain bomb” destroyed our community, including homes, farmland, and the Limahuli stream – our main source of water. It cut off our only road-based access for almost a year and depleted our fisheries, right when our people needed them the most.
North Shore of Kaua‘i, before and after the 2018 climate change-induced “rain bomb.”
Kaliko, a 13-year-old native Hawaiian, left her house for the last time in 2018, as Tropical Storm Olivia became the first tropical cyclone to make landfall in Maui. Intense flooding during the storm destroyed Kaliko’s home, lifting it off its foundation, and washing it downstream. As she fled, Kaliko saw other children fighting for their lives, standing on their roofs so they wouldn’t get washed away. No child should ever have to experience that. Yet, it wasn’t the only climate-induced trauma that Kaliko experienced. Last year, Kaliko lost her home again, this time as a result of the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century.
Before and after 2023 Lahaina fire
How many more climate crisis-induced disasters need to happen before decisionmakers realize the urgency of the problem?
Photo by Bryan Anselm for The New York Times
Like many children experiencing life-threatening events caused by climate change, Kaliko, I and all the other signatories are infuriated to see how slowly governments are reacting. The harm we experience will only become more severe and irreversible without science-based actions to address climate change. We need action, and we need it now. We simply have no other choice.
Thank you your honors. I now give the floor back to Ms. Matheson.
Mitigation of the Climate Crisis Must be Ground in Best Available Science, Kelly Matheson
Your honors, yesterday the Court asked if States must go beyond their current mitigation commitments to protect human rights, and if so, what is sufficient and necessary? We address this question. This Court has a pivotal opportunity to set a mitigation standard and, in so doing, Amici urge the Court adopt three bedrock principles:
First, “best available science” should be used to determine States’ obligations to mitigate climate change.
Second, best available science dictates that to prevent further climate change and restore climate stability, States must urgently work to reduce the current concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to a level that is safe for humanity. That level is 350 parts per million or ppm and no higher.
Third, reducing the concentration of carbon dioxide to 350 requires States to phase out fossil fuels no later than 2050, striving to do so by 2035. This phase-out is necessary to protect children, and it is feasible.
Your honors, States have long known that the concentration of greenhouse gases matters. As early as 1992, they agreed that the “ultimate objective” of the UNFCCC would be:
“to achieve […] stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.”
Carbon dioxide is the most important of the greenhouse gases because CO2 pollution from fossil fuels is the primary driver of climate change.
Your honors, since 2008, separate teams of leading international scientists across many scientific disciplines have identified the target for atmospheric CO2 that would stabilize the climate system. Peer-reviewed study after study found that CO2 should not exceed 350 ppm. This target not only provides climate stability, but it is also measurable and enforceable by Courts.
This limit is not controversial. No scientific body—including the IPCC—has ever indicated that concentrations above 350 ppm are safe. However, the IPCC has unequivocally found that the 1.5℃ target that States currently aspire to heat the planet to, is not considered safe and went on to underscore that every tonne of CO2 emitted amplifies danger.
Despite these clear scientific findings, States continue to push the 1.5 degree target as the goal humanity should aim for. The reason most often cited to justify 1.5 is that it will “avoid the most irreversible and catastrophic harms”. Yet as Kalā explained, catastrophic harm is already occurring at 1.2℃ to 1.3℃ of warming. When unprecedented storms sweep away children’s homes [and] when climate fires stifle our children’s ability to breathe, I ask, is that not irreversible and catastrophic?
Amici respectfully submit that States should immediately align their mitigation efforts with best available science and reduce atmospheric CO2 from today’s concentration of over 420 ppm to below 350ppm. Achieving 350 will help to prevent and mitigate the well-established direct impacts of climate change on children’s health and well-being. This requires the full phase out of fossil fuels by 2050 at the very latest, striving to do so by 2035.
Thank you, your honors. I now give the floor back to Ms. Winter.
Conclusion Kalālapaikuanalu Winter
Mesina, Navahine, Rylee, youth plaintiffs in Navahine v. Hawai‘i Department of Transportation. Photo by Robin Loznak
Your Honors, you just heard from my lawyer why it is crucial to obligate States to meet a science-based standard and phase out all fossil fuels. It really is life or death.
Our rights are already being violated. Government entities producing and promoting excessive greenhouse gas emissions have already led to 1.2℃ to 1.3℃ of global warming. With this level of heating, we have lost our ability to practice our lifeways. We have lost our cultural heritage, our homes, our livelihoods, and our health. For some of us, we have lost our lives.
As my lawyer stated, best available science confirms what we already know: the Paris Agreement target of 1.5℃ is too hot to protect our human rights. Instead, governments must bring down atmospheric CO2 to 350 parts per million, and to do so, they must entirely phase out fossil fuels.
If we don’t do this now, there isn’t going to be a future for any of us.
Mahalo piha — thank you, from the bottom of my heart.