Time is now for a global pact for the environment

Paris Peace Forum provided us with a good starting point, say Denby McDonnell and Yves Tiberghien.

By 2020, Vancouver expects to be the greenest city in the world. But how does a visionary city continue to define the future of environmental sustainability? Vancouver and Canada should embed their local efforts into the new global negotiations for a global pact for the environment, expected by 2022 or so. This pact, featured at the Paris Peace Forum by world leaders earlier this month, will provide an international legal basis for environmental protection and environmental rights.

Today, in spite of recent successes of summits focused on climate change, there is no global legal platform to ensure environmental rights.

At the inaugural Paris Peace Forum, held Nov. 11 to 13 to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War, the environment was one of the key themes. Prominent leaders, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, attended the opening to stand for peace.

One of the most impactful panels was called The Right Time for a Global Pact for the Environment. Throughout the forum, it became clear that peace requires environmental consideration. Climate change or environmental degradation affect global security through migration, water resource scarcity and conflict. It is essential that it becomes translated into political action at every level.

The pact aims to address these challenges by providing a global, law-binding tool that enforces the innate human right to a healthy environment. Now, 140 countries have voted to support it and by 2020, this legal instrument will be implemented so that governments and corporations can be held accountable for actions that negatively impact, what should be, a human right.

What would a global pact for the environment do for British Columbians? Although

Strengthening environmental protections at the global level will improve the legal certainty for Canada’s resource-based economy.

COP21 was effective and unanimous, it was not legally binding and it focused only on climate change. B.C.’s vast natural resources are highly connected to our economy, but also to our identity. Strengthening environmental protections at the global level will improve the legal certainty for Canada’s resource-based economy and advance our international competitiveness. Legal protection of human rights to the environment at the global level will ensure that these resources are available for generations to come. For Vancouver and Canada to be on the forefront of green development, we must actively advocate to adopt the pact and to recognize that human rights must include the environment. The pact emphasizes the vital role of cities in protecting the environment, and Vancouver must push cities around the world to take action on environmental rights. Although the environment has been a highly divisive issue, many British Columbians believe that the environment, political stability, peace and health are connected. At the level of global governance, the environment is something we can all agree on. The interconnectivity of the natural environment embodies a need for multilateralism that goes beyond borders. In challenging times for the global order, a global pact for the environment is timely and necessary to re-establish what brings us together. The conversation about the pact at the Paris Peace Forum became the most engaged and powerful dialogue of the event because the environmental issues are a global problem that connects us all.