TRANSITION FOR A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE AND LEGAL EDUCATION

Resumo

Climate change and environmental degradation are an existential threat to Europe and the world. Despite significant progress in the European Union over the last decades, pollution still heavily impacts our health and the environment. The involvement and commitment of States, the public in general, all the stakeholders and scholars are crucial to tackle climate and environmental-related challenges that are this generation’s defining task. The aim of our work is to develop a program of legal education that can tackle the environmental issues, including the impact on gender. The European Green Deal is a response to these challenges and EU's plan to make Europe a sustainable economy. It is a new growing strategy that aims to transform the European Union into a fair and prosperous society, with a modern, resource-efficient and competitive economy where there are no net emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050 and where economic growth is decoupled from resource use, moving towards a clean and circular economy. It also aims to protect, conserve, and enhance the European Union's natural capital and the protection of the health and the well-being of citizens from environment-related risks and impacts. This putting people first, in particular women, and paying attention to the regions, industries and workers who will face the greatest challenges. The European Green Deal set the ambition of achieving zero pollution target affecting air, water and soil by 2050, so that we can all live in a toxic-free environment. To secure this, we must ensure that pollution is reduced to levels which are no longer expected to be harmful for health and natural ecosystems and respect the boundaries our planet can cope with. This means that we need to rethink the way goods and services are designed, produced, delivered, performed and/or used and disposed of and include pollution prevention in all relevant European Union policies. We could think this is not the right time to develop the Green Deal, as we are in the midst of a global pandemic caused by Covid-19, which challenges seem to be endless. The social-economic consequences with the obligation of lockdown and standstill of most of the activities all around the world were and still are dramatic. However, environment benefited from this situation with less production, less emissions, less waste, less consumption… So, now is time to think and plan a green and inclusive recovery of all the economic sectors and seize the opportunity to reduce their environmental and climate impact. Otherwise, sooner or later, we will notice the consequences of inaction on our health, environment, and economy. In short, climate change and sustainability are the defining concerns of our time. We want a healthy and equal planet for all.