is set to rule Monday on a group of landmark climate change cases aimed at making national governments meet to cut greenhouse emissions.
While activists have enjoyed past success in domestic proceedings, the latest decision is the first time an international court has ruled on climate change.
What is the case about?
The Strasbourg-based court was asked to rule in a trio of cases brought by a French mayor, , and more than 2,000 members of .
The plaintiffs complain their governments are not doing enough to tackle climate change.
Their lawyers want the ECHR to find that political leaders have a legal duty to make sure global warming is limited to a rise of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.
The threshold is in line with the goals of the .
What could the court decide?
A verdict in favor of the claimants by the Grand Chamber of the ECHR’s 17 judges could establish a precedent for the Convention’s 46 signatories.
A ruling against any one country involved could demand they reduce net emissions to zero by 2030. The European Union, of which Switzerland is not a member, has set a target to become .
Lawyers for the activists argue that any political and civil protections guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights, which the ECHR upholds, are meaningless if the planet is uninhabitable.
Legal teams for individual countries facing the legal challenges say the blame for climate change cannot rest with individual states, and want the cases dismissed.
Who are the plaintiffs?
The first case was filed in 2020 by six young Portuguese activists who of failing to stem catastrophic global warming. They say the rising temperatures threaten their right to life. Their case is against every EU country, plus Norway, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and Russia.
Next came the case of more than 2,000 elderly Swiss women who argued that their government’s “woefully inadequate” efforts to fight climate change. They said this put them at particular risk of dying during heatwaves and demanded a ruling that would slash fossil fuel emissions much faster than planned.
Lastly, Damien Careme, former mayor of the French coastal commune of Grande-Synthe, filed a suit attacking the alleged “deficiencies” of the French state. He argued that such shortcomings raised the risk of his town being submerged under the North Sea.
rc/ab (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)
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