High-Judgement Instance on EU Climate Change: a Watershed Moment for the Global Campaign for a Green Future and a Sustainable Future
Ahead of the ruling, a large crowd gathered in front of the court building to cheer and wave flags, including climate activist Greta Thunberg, who was coming off of multiple arrests during a demonstration in The Hague over the weekend. The decisions have “the potential to be a watershed moment in the global fight for a livable future. A victory for any of the three cases would be one of the most significant developments on climate change since the signing of the Paris Agreement” said Gerry Liston, a lawyer with the Global Legal Action Network, which is supporting the Portuguese students. The European Union has a target to be climate-neutral by the year 2050. It is said that it would be difficult to meet a 2030 goal. The groups were confident that the 17 judges would rule in their favor, but the mixed decision could undermine a previous ruling in the Netherlands. In 2019, the Dutch Supreme Court ordered the government to cut emissions by at least 25% by the end of 2020 from benchmark 1990 levels. The Urgenda decision was based on the European Convention of Human Rights. It could be overturned if Tuesday’s decision concludes there is no legal obligation for countries to combat climate change. A. Dennis van Berkel, who worked for Urgenda in the Netherlands, said that the court ruling was binding on all countries.
The European’s highest human rights court started its session on a group of landmark climate change cases.
If a decision against a country is made, they will be forced to reduce their net emissions to zero. The EU is aiming to be climate neutral by the year 2050. Many governments have said it would be difficult to meet a goal in the future.
Is climate change action a human right? A European court will rule for the first time, says a young activist protesting in The Hague
Ahead of the ruling, a large crowd gathered in front of the court building to cheer and wave flags, including climate activist Greta Thunberg, who was coming off of multiple arrests during a demonstration in The Hague over the weekend.
“We’re nervous. Nervous and excited,” said Cláudia Agostinho, a 24-year-old who is one of the six Portuguese who brought the case to the Strasbourg court.
The groups believe that the 17 judges will rule in their favor, but they don’t know if that will undermine a previous ruling in the Netherlands. The government was ordered to cut emissions by 25% by the end of 2020 by the Dutch Supreme Court.
“The extreme heat waves, the rainfalls, followed by heat waves, it is just choking us with greenhouse effects. They began happening more and more, and I am concerned about that. That’s what really scared me. And, I thought to myself, well, what can I do?” she said.
The European Court of Human Rights has not ruled out a constitutional violation of the fundamental rights of women. Senior Women for Climate Protection, a Portuguese case
Together with five more young people, Santos Oliveira took Portugal and 32 other nations to court, arguing the failure to stop emissions violated their fundamental rights.
A group of Swiss retirees are demanding that their government do more. Senior Women for Climate Protection, whose average age is 74, say older women’s rights are especially infringed on because they are most affected by the extreme heat that will become more frequent due to global warming.
The world is already close to exceeding 1.5 degrees of warming. The year was declared the hottest on record. Deadly heatwaves that spread across Europe, North America, and China last year would have been “extremely rare or even impossible without human-caused warming,” an international collaboration of researchers called World Weather Attribution found.
In all three cases, lawyers argued that the political and civil protections guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights are meaningless if the planet is uninhabitable.
Switzerland is not alone in being affected by global warming, said Alain Chablais, representative of the country at last year’s hearings. “This problem cannot be solved by Switzerland alone.”
The Portuguese case was allowed to escape domestic legal proceedings by the court, which was aware of the urgent climate crisis.
Judgements of the European Court of Human Rights aren’t legally binding on all 46 member states, but they set a precedent against which lawsuits would be judged.
Climate change threatens older adults: The case of the landmark case in the U.S. Environmental Protection Act (OEAG) 57/2001
The risks of heatwaves to older adults like the people in this landmark suit are being made worse by climate change. Older adults are more likely to have a chronic medical condition or take prescription medicines that affect the body’s ability to regulate temperature. Climate-related disasters have been found to intensify gender-based violence, as well as make access to resources more difficult for women.
The world could expect more litigation related to climate change, according to the climate activist who attended the ruling.