2023-10-08 11:01:03
Six Portuguese youths, including an 11-year-old child, filed a lawsuit against the governments of several countries, including the European Union member states. The group believes that the relevant decision-makers are not doing enough against global warming, and that they are already feeling its negative effects. This is not the only current climate lawsuit, several such cases have started around the world in recent years. The proceedings have so far led to few results, but a single favorable court decision may be enough to turn things around.
In 2017, especially devastating heat and flames raged in Portugal, more than a hundred people lost their lives in the disaster. Due to the low rainfall that year, the region was even drier than normal, so the fire season did not last from June to September, but from April to October.
According to WWF España, the series of fires was unprecedented, and global warming clearly played a role in the disaster. The majority of experts today agree that due to climate change, extreme weather events, such as droughts and heat waves, will become more frequent and powerful in many regions, and as a result, otherwise natural processes, such as the fires typical of drier, warmer months, will intensify.
“I was very worried about the forest fires, what kind of future awaits me,” the 24-year-old recalled the period of the 2017 disaster Claudia Duarte Agostinho. He, his 20-year-old younger brother, Martinand their 11-year-old sister, Mariana he is one of the six young Portuguese who filed a lawsuit against the governments of 32 countries, including all EU member states, the United Kingdom, Norway, Russia, Switzerland and Turkey, reports the BBC.
According to the group, policy makers in the countries concerned are not taking sufficient action against climate change and are not reducing greenhouse gas emissions sufficiently to meet the target set in the Paris climate agreement.
According to the agreement, the signatory states should strive to limit the level of global warming to 1.5, at most 2 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels, if possible by the end of the century.
Pablo Blazquez Dominguez / Getty Images A firefighting aircraft battles a fire after a wildfire claimed dozens of lives on June 20, 2017 in the village of Mega Fundeira, near Picha, in the Leiria region of Portugal.
This is the first case of its kind to be submitted to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg. The series of negotiations began at the end of September, and if the young people succeed, it could have legally binding consequences for the governments involved: they will have to step up their emission reduction efforts. A decision is expected in 9-18 months.
They don’t want money
According to the Duarte Agostinhos, the forest fires in Portugal since 2017 are a direct consequence of global warming. The group believes that governments’ reluctance to take meaningful action on climate change violates their basic human rights, including their right to life, privacy, family life and freedom from discrimination.
Young people claim that they are already experiencing significant negative effects, especially due to the extreme temperature values prevailing in Portugal. The heat forces them to spend more time indoors, and the heat also disrupts their ability to sleep, concentrate and exercise. Some suffer from ecological anxiety, allergies and respiratory diseases, including asthma.
Neither of them wants to get money from the lawsuit, instead they want to boost the fight against climate change.
“I want a green world without pollution, I want to be healthy,” said 11-year-old Mariana, who says she is participating in the cause because she is very worried about her future.
The girl is not alone, many young people around the world, including the vast majority of Hungarians, are worried about climate change, but Mariana was able to experience first-hand the dangers of warming. According to Claudia, her sister still gets scared when she hears helicopters flying overhead, as they remind her of the firefighting in 2017. The flames then consumed more than 202 square kilometers of forest, and the ash fell on the house of the family living kilometers from the fires.
Claudia is happy that her brother has joined the lawsuit, but at the same time she sees the situation as disturbing. “Why does he have to think about such things? He should rather be playing with his friends and dancing to TikTok videos,” said the young man.
According to Claudia, she often thinks about whether she should have children at all, and what kind of world her offspring will live in. “However, if we win this case, it would mean that there would finally be hope,” he said.
Frederick FLORIN / AFP Young Portuguese citizens and senior Swiss climate officials pose outside the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) after hearing a climate change case against 32 countries on September 27, 2023 in Strasbourg, eastern France.
David and Goliath
Lawyers representing the six plaintiffs are expected to argue that following the current policies of the 32 governments, the planet could see a global temperature increase of 3 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. “This is catastrophic warming,” he said Geróid O’Quinn, director of the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN), which supports the group. As he added, the governments have the power to do much more than they are doing now, but they decided not to act.
In separate and joint responses to the lawsuit, the governments say the youths have not sufficiently proven that they suffered as a direct result of climate change or the Portuguese forest fires. In their opinion, there is no evidence that climate change poses a direct threat to human life or health, and they also argue that climate policy is outside the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights.
“These six young Portuguese people, ordinary people worried about their future, will face 32 legal teams, hundreds of lawyers, representing governments whose inaction is already hurting them,” Ó Cuinn said. As he added, it is a real David vs. Goliath case, which seeks structural change.
Related to the procedure as a third party Dunja Mijatovic, the Council of Europe’s human rights commissioner, said the case could shape how states deal with climate issues and human rights. The lawsuit can be a warning sign for member states and organizations, according to Mijatovic, they need to show that they really care about the issue of global warming, and not just at the level of words on paper.
If the ECtHR decides in favor of young people, its decision would legally oblige the 32 governments to strengthen their measures against climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and phasing out fossil energy sources. This would also affect domestic courts, which have asked the ECtHR for guidance in global warming cases.
Frederick FLORIN / AFP Members of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) open a hearing on September 27, 2023 in Strasbourg, eastern France, in a climate change case involving six young Portuguese citizens against 32 countries.
There are more and more climate lawsuits
Although the greenhouse effect was already recognized at the end of the 19th century, and the fact of global warming was sufficiently scientifically established by the 1970s, the topic only really became a defining element of the mainstream in the 2010s. The 2015 text of the Paris Climate Agreement, Greta Thunberg His performance in 2018, the recent US election campaign and many other moments prove that public interest in climate change has never been so significant.
The increased awareness of the topic has started a completely new phenomenon of climate lawsuits.
In 2015, a precedent-setting case was concluded: The Hague District Court decided that the Dutch government should do more against emissions for the sake of its citizens. Experts consider this the first climate protection liability lawsuit in history.
Since then, several similar legal proceedings have begun, and according to the UN Environmental Protection Program, their number has doubled since 2017. The purpose of such lawsuits is to hold governments, corporations, and other organizations capable of mitigating climate change accountable for putting present and future generations at risk through partial or total inaction.
By 2017, 884 climate lawsuits were registered globally, and the number will rise to 2,180 by 2022. Most of the cases can be linked to the United States, while 17 percent of them started in developing countries. Proceedings have taken place or are taking place at 65 international, regional, national courts and other bodies around the world.
Not only individuals, but also countries and states can be found among the initiators of the cases. This September, for example, California filed a lawsuit against Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips, Chevron and the American Petroleum Institute, reports NPR. According to the lawsuit, the companies involved misled the public about climate change and the dangers of fossil fuels for decades. In recent years, climate change has become a central problem in the state, with heat waves, droughts and huge fires ravaging the region.
So far, there are few results
Jon McGowan according to the analyst and lawyer, despite the increasing number of climate lawsuits, the initiators have not yet achieved remarkable successes. “Using the courts to achieve social change is not a new concept. Proponents of causes often use a multi-pronged approach to achieving goals,” the expert wrote in the relevant article.
As he pointed out, the American Congress, for example, is very slow, often even years or decades have to pass for even a small change. “Well-organized advocacy groups shift their focus to the state level, where legislation is much faster. The organizations start in the states that tend to support the cause, and then move throughout the country. This strategy has proven to be effective on many issues for both the left and the right,” he added.
Using the courts offers an alternative solution: while the legislators write laws, the courts interpret them and compare them with the constitution. Although there is a tendency in America to think that legislation is clear, in reality there can be many interpretations, there are no legal absolutes.
Frederick FLORIN / AFP The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg on September 27, 2023.
In the spirit of climate activism, lawsuits following the above scenario are now taking shape across the United States. The Californian case fits into this trend, in which McGowan expects initial success but eventual failure, primarily because it is difficult to measure the damage caused by oil companies and the contribution of individual companies to global warming.
By the way, the goals – and the results so far – are similar in other parts of the world. It is certain that it is a phenomenon that raises completely new questions, which is why the UN General Assembly requested an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice on the legal responsibility of the member states in relation to climate change according to international treaties.
McGowan believes that the upcoming climate lawsuits will mostly fail, but as he pointed out, a single court ruling can be enough to shift the tip of the scale.
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