The Paris Agreement temperature targets of 1.5°C and 2.0°C are often portrayed as the “best available science” and “protective of human rights”. The targets are neither. Warming to 1.5°C will cause grave human rights violations. To reverse climate change and protect fundamental rights, the best available science instead finds that the annual mean concentration of CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere must fall from current levels of ~420 parts per million (ppm)—a level currently resulting in ~1.1°C to 1.3°C of warming above pre-industrial levels—to below 350 ppm as soon as possible and no later than 2100. This ceiling is known as the 350 ppm limit. Numerous scientific studies support this conclusion, nine of which are summarized and linked to in the new curated bibliography, “Important Scientific Studies on the Limit of Atmospheric CO2 Required to Protect Human Rights”.

Access these important studies here. (5 minute read)

According to science, "The UN's Paris Agreement goal of keeping global warming between 1.5°C to 2.0°C is dangerously obsolete and needs to be replaced by a commitment to restore Earth's climate." Failure to do so will result in hundreds of millions of climate-instigated deaths and likely trigger multiple climate tipping known as points of no return for humanity.

This series explores how heating up to, and remaining at, the Paris target of 1.5°C violates the most basic of human rights, leaving billions in the crosshairs of climate disaster. This series further makes a clarion call for overturning 1.5°C as the proxy legal standard for climate advocacy and instead, urgently initiating a corrective turn to science.

Read Part 1: Overturning 1.5°C: Give science a chance by Kelly Matheson here (6-minute read)

Read Part 2: Replacing the 1.5°C target with what science demands: The 350 ppm limit by Steven Running here (6-minute read)

Read Part 3: The neocolonial violence of the 1.5°C threshold by Juan Auz and Phillip Paiement here (5-minute read)

Read Part 4: Climate candor: Ridding climate cases of questionable science here (6-minute read)

At no other time in human history have the world’s oceans and marine ecosystems been so vulnerable as they are now. Just as our oceans are at a historic crossroads, so too is the International Tribunal on the Law of Sea. Small Island States have asked the Tribunal to say what countries must do to protect our shared marine resources from climate change. As the world’s highest court responsible for protecting our oceans, the Tribunal’s ruling will matter. That’s why 24 young people, Our Children’s Trust, and Oxfam International submitted an Amicus Curiae Brief in this case. The brief calls on the Tribunal to base its opinion on the best available scientific evidence, which clearly finds that we must urgently act to halt the emission of greenhouse gas pollution if we are to preserve our oceans for all humanity.

Read the Amicus Brief here. (93-minute read)

Read the Request Letter here. (43-minute read)

For more about the Advisory Opinion, go here. (4-minute read)

As the Grand Chamber in the European Court of Human Rights (Court) hears its first-ever climate-related cases in spring and fall 2023 — Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz and Others v. Switzerland, Carême v. France, and Duarte Agostinho and Others v. Portugal and Others — an article written by OCT’s global team and published by Strasbourg Observers underscored that human rights can only be fully protected if nations act in accordance with the best available science. The article further indicated that the Paris Agreement's aspirational temperature target of 1.5 °C was politically negotiated rather than scientifically determined and “is not considered ‘safe’ by the UN’s own scientific experts. Allowing Earth’s average surface temperature to continue to rise to 1.5°C would result in injury to millions in Europe and billions across the globe.

Read the article here. (9 minute read)

In February 2023, in response to a call for comments by the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, Our Children’s Trust submitted recommendations for resolving crucial deficiencies in the Committee’s draft “General Comment No. 26 on Children’s Rights and the Environment with a Special Focus on Climate Change.” Among other things, these submissions highlighted the need for General Comment No. 26 to emphasize the urgency of addressing climate harms that children around the world are already experiencing and the need to rely on the best available climate science when setting targets for climate action.

Read the submission here or on the official UN website here. (13 minute read)

Read the press release here. (2 minute read)

In December 2022, Our Children’s Trust and fellow global climate and human rights organizations submitted Third Party Interventions to the European Court of Human Rights in the Grand Chamber’s first ever climate-related cases: Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz and Others v. Switzerland, Duarte Agostinho and Others v. Portugal and Others, and Carême v. France. The co-intervenors submitted key scientific evidence that underscores the relationship between climate change and the violation of human rights.

Read the intervention briefs here. (50 minute read)

Read the press release here. (4 minute read)

Our Children’s Trust Senior Litigation Attorney, Andrea Rodgers, collaborated on this November 2022 article published in the Virginia Environmental Law Journal explaining how the adoption of 1.5°C as a target in the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement was actually the outcome of a political compromise and is not backed by science. The article makes a compelling case for why we must instead brief courts on the evidence provided by scientists and climate experts - evidence that clearly demonstrates how setting climate targets that aim for an average global heating above 1.0°C would be catastrophic.

Read the article here. (55 minute read)

In May 2020, OCT wrote to draw the attention of the Special Rapporteur to the substantive obligations of states under international human rights law to refrain from conduct that harms cultural rights in the context of a warming climate. In light of children’s particular vulnerabilities to climate change impacts, the substantive obligations necessary to preserve the human right to a stable climate, and thus all other underlying human rights, should be linked directly to the temperature and atmospheric greenhouse gas concentration standard as defined by the best available science. This standard would provide a clear benchmark to states for the protection of human rights in a climate change-affected world.

Read the submission here. (55 minute read)

In August 2016, youth made a formal submission to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. With the support of Our Children’s Trust (OCT), Earth Guardians, and the Global Initiative for Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, youth requested the Committee set a science-based standard for governments around the world to meet in order to protect fundamental and inalienable human rights of young people and future generations.

Read the submission here. (45 minute read)

Read the press release here. (3 minute read)

Exhibit A: Dr. James Hansen's Declaration Supporting the Submission (36 minute read)

Exhibit B: Why Policies Must Be Based on 350 ppm and 1 Degree Celsius to Protect Young People and Future Generations (12 minute read)