Youth-led climate action & children’s right to the environment

Speakers

• Chris TOLLEFSON | Founding Principal, Tollefson Law Corporation & Professor of Law, University of Victoria

Since 2016, Chris Tollefson he is also the founding Executive Director of Pacific Centre for Environmental Law and Litigation (CELL), Canada’s first charity dedicated to educating and training aspiring environmental litigators. He is co-counsel on La Rose v HMTQ.

• Albert LALONDE (Montreal, QC) | Climate Activist & Spokesperson for Devoir environmental collectif | "The environment must be our absolute priority because otherwise, nothing makes sense. Government’s refusal to act on climate change according to what science states is needed for survival is violating young people’s right to be young."

Albert Lalonde is a spokesperson for Devoir environnemental collectif, an organization representing the pre-university colleges known as les colleges d’enseignement general et professionnel, or Cegeps, and a broader student coalition. Experiencing severe heat waves and flooding in Montreal, Albert turned to organizing and activism as a response to climate anxiety.

• Haana (Haida Gwaii, BC) | "I believe that stopping climate change is necessary so that future generations can grow up in a sustainable world, secure about the future of their planet and culture."

Haana is learning her Indigenous Haida language. She’s passionate about environmentalism and using her voice to protect her culture, land and the environment. Living on the waterfront near a dock on the island makes Haana particularly vulnerable to the challenges of sea level rise from climate change. Drier, hotter summers have seriously reduced her family’s ability to catch salmon. Typically, they could catch about 50, but this year they only caught five. Gathering natural resources used in cultural practices is also getting much more difficult with climate change.

• Annabel WEBB | Environmental Rights Fellow, David Suzuki Foundation

Annabel has a master’s degree in international human rights law from the University of Oxford, and a master of arts and bachelor of arts from the University of British Columbia. She is currently pursuing an interdisciplinary PhD in international human rights law from the University of London. Annabel has been an advocate for the rights of women and girls for over two decades as the co-founder of two organizations: Justice for Girls and Just Planet. In her fellowship, Annabel will focus on employing existing domestic and international human rights law to promote intergenerational environmental justice in Canada.