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Photo: Susanne Nilsson | Creative Commons License CC BY-SA 2.0

Addressing the climate crisis is the challenge of our lifetimes. The United National Framework Convention on Climate Change provides a basis for all citizens of Earth to get to work. The UNFCCC led to the Paris Agreement.

The Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature is exploring a paradigm shift in how we approach environmental law and policy. Accepting the rights of nature is recognizing and honoring the principle that trees, oceans, animals, mountains have rights just as human beings have rights. Instead of treating nature as property under the law, rights of nature acknowledges that nature in all its life forms has the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate vital cycles. The ecosystem itself can be named as a rights bearing subject with standing in a court of law. The concept has made headway in some countries. Not so much in the USA to date.

The Natural Capital Declaration presents some interesting ideas. It provides an opening to engage business in the need to protect our air and water.

The Blue Planet Project is a global initiative focused on water justice — meaning access to water is a basic human right and part of our global commons. One of the seminal documents expressing the human right to clean water is the Cochabamba Resolution. Short, but powerful.