5' Minutes for Climate and the Environment!

Today, Human Rights Day, we kick off a Climate and Environment campaign which stems from the campaign Eu Medito. The aim is to raise awareness on Climate Emergency, declared by the European Parliament on 28th November, and more generally on environmental issues such as pollution, biodiversity loss, destruction of ecosystems, etc…

Hold on a second… I missed something. Why today? What do Human Rights have to do with this?

Actually, a lot! How? Climate change is one of the greatest threats to human rights of our generation, posing a serious threat to the fundamental rights to life, health, water, food, shelter, sanitation and adequate standards of living of individuals and communities across the world. Climate change increases the frequency of natural disasters and extreme weather events, floods, rising sea levels, fires, heat waves, droughts, desertification, water shortages and the spread of tropical diseases. These are just some of the negative effects of climate change and they pose a threat to human rights worldwide.

Today, 10th December 2019, the theme of the Human Rights Day is Youth Standing Up for Human Rights. Young activists who advocate for what they believe in, carrying a message of justice, respect, peace, non-violence, but also great motivation, because we are never too young to change the world.

It is therefore time to launch our campaign 5' Minutes for Climate and the Environment!

Why 5' Minutes for Climate and the Environment?

Our founder, La Jardinera says, people’s conscience today, will make the Earth of tomorrow. To stop global warming, pollution and the destruction of ecosystems, we need profound policy changes, but also individual ones. These are only possible if we are aware of the existing problems and the consequences they will have on the entire world’s population (us included). Only by raising awareness can we enable a decision to change our behaviour in a sustainable way, and by renewing our resolution every day, we can strengthen our motivation to make change happen.

Moreover, to have an effective behavioural change, we need to have a clear understanding of environmental problems, which are a complex, even though not complicated, issue. This is why, in order to raise awareness effectively, we will organise workshops and activities with the aim to understand what environmental problems exist, how they are interconnected and what individual actions we can take for a sustainable development.

More information will be available soon on the activities that will be organised. For now, thank you so much for all your love and support.

Some interesting links to better understand what we are talking about:

The European Parliament declares Climate Emergency

UN Human Rights Day, 10th December

Human Rights and Climate Change, OHCHR (United Nations Office for Human Rights)

Human Rights and Climate Change, United Nations Environment Programme

Young Activists Summit – Women and Girls Driving Process, 10 December 2019 United Nation Palace, Geneva #YAS19

I, unfortunately, ended up out of the picture... to the right #YAS19

However Eu Medito was there, even if it was left out of the official photo #YAS19

The roof of the conference room of the Human Rights Summit at United Nations #YAS19