Escazú COP3: Ensuring Environmental Democracy in Latin America and the Caribbean

Published May 13, 2024 By Luisa Gomez Betancur, Senior Attorney, and Lani Furbank, Communications Campaign Specialist. The Escazú Agreement is the first legally binding regional treaty that upholds environmental democracy — the right to information, participation, and justice — in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the first in the world containing specific provisions aiming … Read More.

The Global Coalition for the Right to a Healthy Environment: Making History & Protecting Our Collective Future

Published February 2, 2024 By Sébastien Duyck, Senior Attorney & Human Rights & Climate Campaign Manager, and Lani Furbank, Communications Campaign Specialist. On the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a diverse, people-powered, global coalition made history at the United Nations headquarters in New York.  The Global Coalition of Civil Society, Indigenous … Read More.

The World Bank Needs a Remedy Framework to Deliver on Loss and Damage

Published December 18, 2023 By Aubrey Manahan, Campaigner for CIEL’s People, Land & Resources Program. This month, during the United Nations Climate Summit COP28 in Dubai, Parties finalized the creation of a Loss and Damage Fund aimed at addressing climate-related harms endured by vulnerable communities and countries. While this achievement follows decades of advocacy by … Read More.

COP28: A Crucial Crossroads for Fossil Fuel Phaseout and Human Rights

Published November 29, 2023 The United Nations climate conference gets underway in the United Arab Emirates this week against a backdrop of broken records and broken promises. From off-the-charts temperatures and unprecedented weather events to off-the-rails climate policies and missing climate finance, 2023 has raised the stakes for this year’s intergovernmental climate talks to new … Read More.

Will Canada Stand Up for Indigenous Rights or Continue Supporting Big Oil?

This article by Whitney Gravelle, Lindsay Bailey, Tamara Morgenthau, and Marco Simons was originally published on Just Security. One day in July 2010, residents of Marshall, Michigan, smelled something toxic in the air and called 9-1-1. It took over 17 hours for Canadian oil giant Enbridge to detect that its Line 6b pipeline had ruptured. In that time, … Read More.

Latest IPCC Report Warns: We Do Not Have Time to Waste on False Solutions

In March, the international authority on climate science released its new Synthesis Report on the current status of climate change, its impacts and risks, and our options to adapt to and confront the crisis in these pivotal years ahead. The takeaways from this massive document by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are numerous and detailed, … Read More.

Beyond Recycling: Reckoning with Plastics in a Circular Economy

As the world considers how to address the growing impacts of the triple planetary crises of pollution, climate change, and biodiversity loss, many discussions point toward a circular economy approach as a much-needed solutions pathway. The term circular economy is routinely used in conversations and policy discussions that center on re-envisioning the full system of … Read More.

Escazú, Environmental Democracy, and Development Finance 

By Carla García Zendejas It has been a year since the landmark Escazú Agreement entered into force (April 22, 2021), and while the Agreement was envisioned in a pre-COVID world, it is critical to take stock of the context in which it will be implemented. This week, States are gathering in Santiago, Chile, to do … Read More.