Europe’s highest human rights court will rule on a group of landmark climate change cases aimed at forcing countries to meet international obligations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Although activists have had successes with lawsuits in domestic proceedings, this will be the first time an international court has ruled on climate change.A decision against any of the countries involved could force them to reduce net emissions to zero by 2030. The EU, which does not include Switzerland, currently has a target to be climate-neutral by 2050.
The groups are confident that the 17 judges will rule in their favour, but a decision in the other direction could undermine a previous ruling in the Netherlands. “A court ruling is binding on all countries,” said Dennis van Berkel, who represented Urgenda in the Netherlands. Together with five more young people, Ms Santos Oliveira took Portugal and 32 other nations to court, arguing the failure to stop emissions violated their fundamental rights.
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.