A healthy environment is essential to human life, health and well-being. Climate change is increasingly impacting the environment in ways that harm people. Climate change affects the air we breathe, the availability of food and water, and the rate and intensity of extreme weather events, such as floods, droughts and storms that have great potential to cause harm to human populations.
There is a growing international consensus that efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change are ultimately necessary to protect and advance basic human rights, including the right to life. The right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment has emerged as another way of recognizing that humans require a healthy environment for their survival and for the realization of all other human rights.
In 2022, the right to a healthy environment was recognized by the United Nations General Assembly, with 161 countries – including Canada – voting in favour of recognizing this right. Moreover, the right to a healthy environment has been added to the constitutions of more than 100 countries, while many others have recognized it through ordinary laws.
Canada recognized the right to a healthy environment for the first time at the federal level in 2023 through amendments to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999. The right is also recognized in different forms in Ontario, Quebec, Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut.
As a result of these federal amendments, the government must develop an implementation framework by June 2025 which will set out more details about the scope and meaning, at the federal level, of the right to a healthy environment.
Several factors that could also influence further development of the right to a healthy environment in Canada include advisory opinions at the international level, legal cases in other countries and litigation in Canada. In Canada, several climate-related cases have already been brought against different levels of government based on related rights, like equality rights and the right to life. These developments could significantly influence the future development of Canadian laws and policies relating to climate change, as well as other environmental issues.
Read the full text of the HillStudy: Climate Change and the Right to a Healthy Environment: International and Canadian Developments
By Robert Mason, Library of Parliament
Categories: Agriculture, environment, fisheries and natural resources, Executive summary