UN moves to commandeer children for climate ideology
The United Nations Tuesday issued guidance to member states requiring children to be made operatives in the “fight against climate change.”
In the missive—referred to as a general comment—the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child declared “climate change” to be a violation of child rights for threatening a child’s right to live. The committee therefore demanded that children “participate in environmental decision-making” and have “child-friendly access to justice”, which will empower them to “become agents of their own destiny.”
Part of such child-friendly access to justice is encouraging children to file legal complaints against others for violating their rights by contributing to “climate change”.
“Mechanisms should be available for claims of imminent or foreseeable harms and past or current violations of children’s rights. States should ensure that these mechanisms are readily available to all children under their jurisdiction, without discrimination,” instructs the UN committee, adding that statutes of limitations should be extended and class action lawsuits permitted.
Children who wish to sue others for child rights violation by climate change should be given free access to free legal aid and “be provided the opportunity to be heard in any judicial or administrative proceedings affecting them” with protection against financial risk.
They should not, however, be forced to bring proof that their rights were violated:
States should explore options for shifting the onerous burden of proof from child plaintiffs to establish causation in the face of numerous variables and information deficits.
A child should, for example, be able to sue a business for child rights violations by not doing enough to reduce carbon emissions. The company would then be liable to pay the child “appropriate reparation”, including “restitution, adequate compensation, satisfaction, rehabilitation and guarantees of non-repetition, with regard to both the environment and the children affected, including access to medical and psychological assistance.”
Such psychological assistance would go to treating the child’s “eco-anxiety” and “depression” resulting from “environmental harm”.
However, the child is unlikely to be cured of their eco-anxiety, because the UN also requires member states to teach children about how the environment is harming them:
Children have the right to access to accurate and reliable environmental information, including about the causes, effects and actual and potential sources of climate and environmental harm, adaptive responses, relevant climate and environmental legislation, regulations, findings from climate and environmental impact assessments, policies and plans and sustainable lifestyle choices.
“States have an obligation to make environmental information available” to children of all ages, abilities, languages, and capacities, and to “encourage the media” to disseminate such information as well.
After being told how they are being severely harmed by the climate, children are encouraged to protest. These children, whom the UN calls “children environmental human rights defenders”, are to be protected and provided with “a safe and empowering context” for protest initiatives.
In addition to ensuring that children are made active participants in decision-making, governments must also ensure that they are not questioned for doing so:
The obligation to fulfil rights requires that States combat negative societal attitudes to children’s right to be heard and to facilitate their meaningful participation in environmental decision-making.
The UN has previously signaled that it supports ascribing more independence to children. The organization came under fire earlier this year for endorsing a report which stated that children can consent to sex.
