James E. Hansen, Director of the Program of Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions at the Earth Institute, Columbia University, submitted an amicus in support of the climate change and future generations case that Colombian children and youth filed last January 25th with the support of Dejusticia.

Hansen is a leading climate change scientist, who has worked to raise awareness about the imminent dangers of this phenomenon and proposed solutions to guarantee the right to a healthy environment of future generations.

Hansen points out that the children and young people’s petition to the Colombian Government, to take action to stop deforestation in the Amazon, is necessary to guarantee that Colombia fulfills its international commitment to reach zero net deforestation in the region by the year 2020. But also, in order for the country to assume a global leadership role in the fight against climate change.

In the legal action, the 25 plaintiffs argue that their rights to a healthy environment, life, health, food, and water are being threatened by the destruction of the Amazon forest and its warming effects on the country. Dr. Hansen supports this argument, and affirms that the plaintiffs represent “the rights of future generations of Colombians”.

The amicus reads: “Significant impacts from human-induced climate change are already experienced in Colombia and other nations — from sea level rise, hydrological change,  increased heat, amplified severe weather, altered pathogens, and related disruptive factors.  But those and other impacts will become extreme, if climate change remains essentially unarrested. Far worse is still to come. Plaintiffs, and the future generations for which they ineluctably must stand, will be disproportionately burdened, stressed, tested, and harmed.”

See the amicus below.