The climate crisis is about lives.
Not numbers. Not statistics.
Lives.
Climate Justice for Rosa (CJfR) is a youth-led movement that brings the lived reality of the climate crisis into the spaces where decisions are made.
What began as a group of teenagers’ response to the loss of their friend Rosa during the 2021 floods has grown into an international coalition of people whose lives have been directly impacted by the climate crisis, alongside scientists, artists, and advocates.
We work at the intersection of remembrance and action.
Because remembering is not passive. Remembering is a form of resistance..
From loss to action
Climate Justice for Rosa was born in the aftermath of the devastating floods of July 2021, which took more than 220 lives in Belgium and Germany.
In October 2021, only a few months later, the campaign was launched during a climate march in Brussels.
We were in the streets from the beginning. We still are.
You may have seen us there, dressed in red, carrying a banner that reads:
“Politicians die of old age. Rosa died of climate change.”
But protest alone is not enough.
So we pushed our way into the rooms where decisions are made.
Today, our work connects the streets to the spaces where decisions are made. From marches to parliaments. From memorials to international negotiations.
15 July
European and Belgian Remembrance Day for the Victims of the Global Climate Crisis
Acknowledging the problem is the first step towards solving it. The climate crisis claims lives across the globe, yet these victims often go unrecognized and uncommemorated. As David Van Reybrouck aptly puts it, "It is difficult to commemorate when you are partly responsible."
In the aftermath of the catastrophic floods of 2021, which claimed 220 lives in Belgium and Germany, Benjamin and Rosa’s family conceived the idea of establishing an official day of remembrance for the victims of the global climate crisis. The first person Benjamin contacted was EU Executive Vice-President Frans Timmermans. They chose 15 July, the anniversary of the tragic floods, as the date for the remembrance day.
Thanks to our advocacy, the European Commission, Parliament, and Council officially designated 15 July as the “EU Day for the Victims of the Global Climate Crisis” in July 2023, and the Belgian federal parliament followed the European example in May 2024.
Climate Justice for Rosa is now pushing to have this remembrance day recognized by the UN at an upcoming General Assembly session. Stay tuned!
From the streets to decision-making
What started as a grassroots initiative has grown into a recognised voice in climate discussions at national, European, and international levels.
Climate Justice for Rosa engages directly with institutions including the European Union, the United Nations, and the Council of Europe. The organisation is registered in the EU Transparency Register, giving us access to engage directly with European policymakers, and participates in international climate negotiations through the UNFCCC processes (including COP and intersessional meetings in Bonn).
We have also been granted official observer status in the Council of Europe’s Steering Committee on the Environment (CDENV), where 46 countries discuss the link between human rights and the environment.
Together, this means that a youth-led movement, created in response to a climate disaster, is now able to intervene in spaces where environmental policy is shaped across different levels.
We use that access to bring one thing into those rooms: the human reality of the climate crisis.
Children's Rights
The climate crisis is a children’s rights crisis.
Children and young people are among those most affected by climate disruption, yet they are rarely included in the decisions that shape their future.
Through our advocacy at the United Nations, the European Union, and international climate summits, we push for children’s rights to be placed at the heart of climate policy. We actively support the implementation of General Comment No. 26 of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child—the first global legal interpretation confirming that governments have a duty to protect children from environmental harm. We also contribute to the global campaign around the International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion on Climate Change, which seeks to clarify states’ legal obligations to safeguard the rights of present and future generations.
Together with partners from around the world, we call on leaders and courts to uphold every child’s right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment.
We give a platform to young activists from around the world who are already living the consequences of the crisis, sharing their stories of loss, resilience, and courage. From Bangladesh to Tuvalu to Europe, these stories remind the world that the climate crisis is not about numbers and statistics, but about real people, people like you and us, and people like Rosa.
Our work calls for accountability, solidarity, and justice, for the children growing up in the climate crisis, and for the generations yet to come.
United Nations Climate Change Conferences
The Conference of the Parties (COP) is the main decision-making forum under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), bringing together 197 nations to address the climate crisis. Since 1995, world leaders have met annually to negotiate global climate agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. Alongside governments, COPs unite civil society, scientists, and youth movements from around the world to exchange knowledge, influence policy, and push for collective action.
At these summits, Climate Justice for Rosa brings the lived experiences of young people on the frontlines of the climate crisis to the spaces where global decisions are made. We have been invited to speak at high-level events hosted by the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Climate Change, the European Union, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the Child Rights International Network (CRIN), and other international bodies. Our interventions consistently call for children’s rights to be placed at the heart of climate policy—building on General Comment No. 26 and the International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion on climate change.
We also organise our own youth-led side events to give a platform to young people directly affected by the climate crisis, amplifying voices from communities in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific who are too often excluded from global decision-making. In addition, we facilitate bilateral meetings between young Earth defenders and EU leaders, creating direct spaces for dialogue, solidarity, and accountability.
By ensuring that those living with the consequences of climate inaction are heard in the very rooms where the world’s future is negotiated, we turn personal loss into political change and push for climate justice grounded in human rights.
Art & storytelling
Some truths cannot be communicated through data alone.
Art allows people to feel what statistics cannot show.
Through theatre, storytelling, and public memorials, Climate Justice for Rosa makes the human reality of the climate crisis tangible.
The play For Rosa, co-written by Benjamin Van Bunderen Robberechts and Nic Balthazar, has been performed more than 150 times and reached tens of thousands of people.
Through these projects, we transform individual grief into collective memory.
And collective memory into action.
The climate crisis is already shaping our world.
Remembering those we have lost is not only an act of mourning, it is an act of responsibility.
But climate disasters do not only take lives. They also tear people away from their homes, their communities, and the places they love.
Through remembrance, advocacy, and solidarity, Climate Justice for Rosa works to ensure that those we have lost, and those whose lives have been forever changed, are never forgotten.