Europe’s highest human rights court has ruled its member nations must protect their citizens from the consequences of climate change in a landmark ruling that sided with a group of 2,000 Swiss women against their government.The European Court of Human Rights rejected two other, similar cases — a high-profile one brought by Portuguese young people and another by a French mayor that sought to force governments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The Swiss women were overjoyed as they descended to the court building’s foyer to cheers and applause.The court — which is unrelated to the European Union — faulted Switzerland for not giving sufficient protection to the Senior Women for Climate Protection, whose average age is 74 and who argued that older women are most vulnerable to the extreme heat that is becoming more frequent.
“This is a turning point,” said Corina Heri, an expert in climate change litigation at the University of Zurich. She said it would open the door to more legal challenges in the countries that are members of the Council of Europe, which includes the 27 EU nations as well as many others from Britain to Turkey.“These rulings are a call to action. They underscore the importance of taking our national governments to court,” the 21-year-old Swede told The Associated Press.
Lawyers for all three cases decided on Tuesday had hoped the Strasbourg court would find that national governments have a legal duty to make sure global warming is held to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, in line with the goals of the Paris climate agreement. The Earth shattered global annual heat records in 2023, flirted with the world’s agreed-upon warming threshold, and showed more signs of a feverish planet, Copernicus, a European climate agency, said in January.
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