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Akiak Teenager Files Complaint Alleging Climate Inaction Violates Children's Rights

Akiak receives funding to move the 6 homes closest to the eroding riverbank.
Greg Kim
/
KYUK

Sixteen young people from a dozen countries filed a legal complaint about climate change with the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. The petitioners range in age from eight to 17. Their complaint alleges that five countries, Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany, and Turkey, are violating children’s rights by failing to curb fossil fuel emissions and reduce the effects of the climate crisis. The youth filed their complaint the same week the United Nations is convening for its Climate Action Summit in New York City. One of the petitioners comes from the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.

“Hi, my name is Carl Smith. I’m Yup'ik from Akiak, Alaska, and I’m 17 years old." On Monday, Smith, along with the other petitioners, introduced himself to the world at a press conference hosted by UNICEF, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund.

“I’m here because climate change is affecting the way I live. It’s taking away my home, the land, and the animals,” Smith told the crowd.

When asked by one reporter if he felt like taking on the responsibility of fighting for climate action had stolen his childhood, Smith said yes.

“Because I can’t do my subsistence lifestyle anymore," Smith explained. "We used to be able to go hunt, geese hunt, any kind of hunting, berry picking, and now they’re just disappearing.”

He then shared why he believes global leaders are delaying action on climate change.

“I think they’re acting slow because they don’t want to lose money, and I think they should go see what it’s doing to the people in the little villages and the little cities,” Smith urged.

Akiak, where Smith lives on the Kuskokwim River, is one of those little villages. Akiak has undergone dramatic erosion in recent years, forcing people to move out of their houses as the encroaching riverbank threatens their safety. Three of the other petitioners are from the Marshall Islands and another is from Palau. Each described their islands sinking beneath a rising and warming ocean, taking away their homes as well.

At the end of the press conference, Smith gave this final message:

“Everyone needs to act now, because if we don’t act now then all of us are going to lose our homes. We’re going to lose everything. Would you guys want to lose your homes?”

A global youth school strike is planned for this Friday to demand that world leaders create policy to arrest the climate crisis. Smith marched in a similar strike last week in New York City.

Anna Rose MacArthur served as KYUK's News Director from 2015-2022.