{"id":165384,"date":"2020-07-27T12:00:05","date_gmt":"2020-07-27T11:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=165384"},"modified":"2020-07-21T08:23:57","modified_gmt":"2020-07-21T07:23:57","slug":"renewed-attempt-for-a-global-pact-for-the-environment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/07\/renewed-attempt-for-a-global-pact-for-the-environment\/","title":{"rendered":"Renewed Attempt for a Global Pact for the Environment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Foreword<\/strong><\/p>\n

20 Jul 2020 – <\/em>What is climate from a legal point of view?\u00a0Almost 30 years after the\u00a0adverse effects of climate change\u00a0have been considered as a common concern\u202fof humankind,\u00a0there has been no consensus on what that means\u00a0from a legal standpoint. Even though it remains the legal framework adopted by the Paris Agreement, there is today no official definition of what the implications of this approach are. A\u00a0common concern\u00a0is a vague political formula\u00a0that does not legally recognize the existence of the common good\u00a0 itself (stable climate), and\u00a0makes it\u202ftechnically impossible to build an economy capable of producing the required positive\u00a0actions, (and not only\u00a0 avoiding the negative actions) to recover\u00a0a well-functioning Earth System.<\/p>\n

Although\u00a0these structural\u00a0questions\u00a0should be at the center of the first attempt to reach a\u00a0Global\u00a0Pact for the\u00a0Environment, the truth is that the three first substantive meetings of the Ad Hoc Open-ended Working Group established by United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution No 72\/277 of 10 May 2018,\u00a0that took place in Nairobi last year\u00a0(see our contributions<\/a>), were\u00a0a sterile discussion of about\u00a0international\u00a0legal\u00a0gaps, without even being able to define\u00a0what will a\u00a0Global\u00a0Pact for the\u00a0 Environment regulate: Should be Climate? Oceans? Biodiversity? Legal\u00a0 gaps? What is the global environment?<\/p>\n

A New Global Pact\u00a0can only be meaningful if it is\u00a0capable of addressing the restoration of the Earth System as a single unit.\u00a0This\u00a0may be the\u00a0last opportunity\u00a0to make a paradigm shift in international environmental law by broadening its focus toward an Earth System\u00a0approach,\u00a0and\u00a0enabling governments to embark on a scientifically informed path\u00a0to restore\u00a0a stable climate\u00a0with\u00a0cascading effects\u00a0on social justice, health and wealth creation for all.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow a\u00a0new round\u00a0of three major meetings<\/a>\u00a0on the follow-up of UN General Assembly\u00a0resolution 73\/333<\/a>\u00a0will start.\u00a0This\u00a0is a unique opportunity to change\u00a0the course\u00a0of\u00a0the Global\u00a0Pact for the Environment,\u00a0 and\u00a0we\u00a0 emphasise\u00a0 he huge importance of the involvement of the media in this process.<\/p>\n

The pathway for a new Global Pact needs a\u00a0strong declaration on the next UNEA5, that will take place on the next February 2021 in Nairobi\u00a0as\u00a0 well as a\u00a0strong international commitment\u00a0in the landmark\u00a0of\u00a0the commemorations of the\u00a0Stockholm+50, coming up in 2022.\u00a0This can be an\u00a0unique\u00a0pathway\u00a0of hope for a constructive approach to the climate emergency, and a plan for restoring the well-functioning of the Earth System.<\/p>\n

Paulo\u00a0Magalh\u00e3es\u00a0\u2013\u00a0CHH\u00a0<\/wbr>President – +351918058909<\/em>
\nSara Pires \u2013 CHH Executive Board Member – +351966602315<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Image of Planet Earth taken from Apollo 17<\/p><\/div>\n

*******************************************<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Open Letter <\/strong>to<\/strong> All UN Ambassadors from <\/strong>Common Home <\/strong>of<\/strong> Humanity<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n

The organization is assembling an international coalition of leading Earth System scientists, legal experts, economists, sovereign states, NGOs, local authorities and universities, and proposes the recognition of the Earth System as a Common Heritage of Humankind in international negotiations.<\/p>\n

“A strong Universal Declaration to introduce the Principle of the Integrity and Unity of the Earth System” in the negotiations of the Global Pact for the Environment promoted by the United Nations General Assembly, “through the legal recognition as a Common Heritage of Humankind”, is the proposal presented by the Common Home of Humanity (CHH) in an Open Letter sent on Friday to the 620 ambassadors accredited to the UN in New York, Nairobi (Kenya) and Geneva (Switzerland).<\/p>\n

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the ambassadors will meet online on July 21 to reopen the negotiation process, after a first phase that took place in 2019 over three sessions in Nairobi ended in a deadlock. The letter from the international organization stresses that today it’s possible to define how the global environment works within the Earth System “with a high degree of scientific accuracy”. Postponing the process of integrating this scientific knowledge into legal instruments “could prove to be fatal, given the urgency of the climate crisis and the pressures the planet is under”. As the window of opportunity to prevent irreversible climate change is closing fast and scientists warn that we are near a threshold situation, the Global Pact for the Environment “may be the last opportunity to make a paradigm shift in international law”.<\/p>\n

The interconnections between economy, social justice, climate emergency, biosphere degradation and the Covid-19 pandemic “are becoming more and more evident”, highlights the CHH document. Expanding the Global Pact for the Environment negotiation process to encompass all elements of the Earth System “can make this agreement fairer in terms of historical responsibilities, while allowing an easier and clearer integration of the system’s bio-geophysical cycles in the functioning of the economy”.<\/p>\n

The CHH emphasizes that the holistic vision it proposes allows an approach to the current environmental, social and health crisis, with some possibility of success towards a well-functioning Earth System. “We are today at a historic moment that requires us to go beyond a mere technical codification and systematization of dispersed International Environment Law principles”, which marked the first round of negotiations of the Global Pact for the Environment.<\/p>\n

Restore a Well-Functioning Earth System<\/strong><\/p>\n

Paulo Magalh\u00e3es, president of CHH, says that “without the recognition of the existence of an intangible common good without borders – the Earth System – it’s impossible to recover its well-functioning state and, consequently, to return to a stable and adequate climate to the human needs”. Today, “to realize the benefits to maintain and recover the functioning of the Earth System is to realize the benefits in a legal, and therefore economic and governance, vacuum. So “we are compromising ours and the next generations to maintain an economy that is not fit for Humanity, and that values what is not essential to life and does not guarantee our future”.<\/p>\n

The Common Home of Humanity, with headquarters at the University of Porto, Portugal, is a global organization that is assembling an international coalition of leading scientists from the Earth System and sustainability, legal experts, economists, sovereign states, NGOs, local authorities, universities, individuals and other partners, with the aim to achieve the recognition of the Earth System as a Common Heritage of Humankind in international negotiations.<\/p>\n

The CHH will launch a global campaign on September 1 to open a wide debate on the need to define a Global Common without borders – a well-functioning Earth System\/Stable climate. The campaign will involve diverse initiatives, including a set of videos on the organization’s vision and goals and statements by international personalities. Watch here one of the videos of the future campaign.<\/p>\n

The organization was invited to participate in the celebrations of the 75th anniversary of the United Nations, where it will lead one of the parternship tables of the “UN75 Global Governance Forum”, a virtual forum that takes place on 16 and 17 September with more than 200 leaders of NGOs, governments, philanthropic institutions, companies and the technological community. The results will be presented to the UN75 Leaders Summit in Sept 21 2020.<\/p>\n

_______________________________________<\/p>\n

Common Home of Humanity<\/a> – Instituto Geof\u00edsico da Universidade do Porto, Vila Nova de Gaia – email: generaldirector@commonhomeofhumanity.org<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

20 Jul 2020 – What is climate from a legal point of view?\u00a0After 30 years,\u00a0there has been no consensus on what that means\u00a0from a legal standpoint. Common Home of Humanity is assembling an international coalition of leading Earth System scientists, legal experts, economists, sovereign states, NGOs, local authorities and universities, and proposes the recognition of the Earth System as a Common Heritage of Humankind in international negotiations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":108143,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[686,1354,519,401,993,391,493,124],"class_list":["post-165384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environment","tag-climate-change","tag-earth","tag-ecology","tag-environment","tag-global-warming","tag-nature","tag-paris-climate-agreement","tag-united-nations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}