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Earth Government The Courts

Six Young People Take 32 Countries To Court Over Climate Change 219

Posted by BeauHD from the David-vs-Goliath dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: What I felt was fear," says Claudia Duarte Agostinho as she remembers the extreme heatwave and fires that ripped through Portugal in 2017 and killed more than 100 people. "The wildfires made me really anxious about what sort of future I would have." Claudia, 24, her brother Martim, 20, and her sister Mariana, 11, are among six young Portuguese people who have filed a lawsuit against 32 governments, including all EU member states, the UK, Norway, Russia, Switzerland and Turkey. They accuse the countries of insufficient action over climate change and failing to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions enough to hit the Paris Agreement target of limiting global warming to 1.5C. The case is the first of its kind to be filed at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg. If it is successful, it could have legally-binding consequences for the governments involved. The first hearing in the case is being held on Wednesday.

Aged from 11 to 24, the six claimants argue that the forest fires that have occurred in Portugal each year since 2017 are a direct result of global warming. They claim that their fundamental human rights -- including the right to life, privacy, family life and to be free from discrimination -- are being violated due to governments' reluctance to fight climate change. They say they have already been experiencing significant impacts, especially because of extreme temperatures in Portugal forcing them to spend time indoors and restricting their ability to sleep, concentrate or exercise. Some also suffer from eco-anxiety, allergies and respiratory conditions including asthma. None of the young applicants is seeking financial compensation.

Lawyers representing the six young claimants are expected to argue in court that the 32 governments' current policies are putting the world on course for 3C of global warming by the end of the century. [...] In separate and joint responses to the case, the governments argue that the claimants have not sufficiently established that they have suffered as a direct consequence of climate change or the Portuguese wildfires. They claim there is no evidence to show climate change poses an immediate risk to human life or health, and also argue that climate policy is beyond the scope of the European Court of Human Rights jurisdiction. "These six young people from Portugal, who are ordinary individuals concerned about their future, will be facing 32 legal teams, hundreds of lawyers representing governments whose inaction is already harming them," says Gearoid O Cuinn, director of Global Legal Action Network (GLAN).

"So this is a real David vs Goliath case that is seeking a structural change to put us on a much better track in terms of our future."
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Six Young People Take 32 Countries To Court Over Climate Change More

Six Young People Take 32 Countries To Court Over Climate Change

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  • What I felt was fear,"

    Fear. That's very clearly an actionable reason to go to court.

  • I think I would be quasi-militant. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Qbertino ( 265505 ) <moiraNO@SPAMmodparlor.com> on Saturday September 30, 2023 @02:13AM (#63888851)

    The stuff we're discussing right now on the eco-turnaround / man-made climate change front was already a solid issue when I was a teenager. I admire the youngster doing this lawsuit - which they will win - but I'm skeptical of the real impact it will have. The German government already is breaking their own laws in order to continue to act as if we have time left and most of my somewhat dimwitt fellow German citizens want to continue spending 4.5 billion man-hours in traffic jams in cars that are getting bigger, heavier and even more wasteful to this day and complain about a few dozen teenies glueing themselves to roads rather than finally taking on some accountability and changing things.

    It's quite frustrating. I think I'd be more militant as a young activist. Modern civilization is at stake and we still have too many shortsighted idiots calling the shots. And I'm losing my patience.

    • I admire the youngster doing this lawsuit - which they will win

      They're not going to win.

    • Hypothetical: you're king for a day and can change literally anything you want... go!

      What does the world look like in your utopia?

      • For a day? The most you could hope to accomplish would be some kind of minor purge of the billionaire and executive classes. Problems created over generations can't be solved in a day. That's only enough time to push the nuclear reset button.

        • It's a hypothetical. You get to rework the world how you see fit.

          • It took us thousands of years of civilization to get most of the way here, and it took us hundreds of years of industrialization to get the rest. The more modern the society the more it's been built around unsustainable waste and destruction, but most human societies have historically used up their natural resources to their detriment with practices they could literally see were causing harm.

            But if you were going to make the world a better place, you'd stop focusing on profit for a privileged few, and start

            • ”But if you were going to make the world a better place, you'd stop focusing on profit for a privileged few, and start intently revising systems to be less wasteful and polluting. You'd stop discarding valuable resources in ways that cause damage. You'd aim for efficiency and quality of life instead of ever-larger numbers of humans. But above all, you'd put your energy into understanding and maintaining your life support system, because everything else is meaningless without it."

              Agreed. The problem i

      • I would decree that for everyone on this entire planet by 2030 every eco-balance on every product purchased and every service offered the eco-balance is priced in as a tax. The eco balance for the top 30-40 areas of industry would be determined by an international independent board of experts and continuously revised based on current data.

        This would basically more or less solve all our resource and eco-problems over night.

        • Do you expect the same levels of economic activity or is the intent of the tax to lower economic activity?

          Where do those tax payments go?

          • We'd have to do this incrementally in order for the economy to adjust. Wasteful luxury items such as throw-away electronics with glued in batteries (such as iPhones), SUVs, private jets and so forth would get the 100% eco balance tax right away plus perhaps some luxury tax on top, the rest of goods and services would have their tax incrementally added in 20% steps or so every odd quarter. Roughly speaking. Heavily influenced critical services would get subsidized or supported by government with more leeway

  • Now try to collect.
    {o.o}

  • Well... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by sinkskinkshrieks ( 6952954 )
    It makes for a laudable statement, but it makes absolutely zero impact removing carbon from the atmosphere and there is no one party in particular to blame. Instead of suing to win a gold star, there needs to be a hard, proportionate benchmark per year per country per company and a fraction for the government representing the public's and defunct companies' share. Without net negative emissions, rather than the bullshit of "net zero" and "cap and trade", there will only be more delay and insufficient progre

  • The current systems of government simply aren't suited to any kind of mass change like this.

    Altering national policy to reduce pollutants on a mass scale is extremely expensive, and will have a significant effect on a nation's economy as well as reducing quality of life for the vast majority of its citizens.
    Meanwhile other countries that don't make such changes will see improvements, the amount of pollution they produce will also increase and offset many of the reductions from other countries.
    The citizens o

  • The case (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Luckyo ( 1726890 ) on Saturday September 30, 2023 @08:28AM (#63889163)

    "My feelings of fear should trump your right to self determination and ability to create laws."

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      In fact the only reason they can bring this case is because governments created laws allowing it.

      For example, the UK's legally binding commitment to reach net zero by 2050 allows people to sue the government if they can demonstrate that the government isn't making sufficient progress towards that goal. It also confirms that the government understands and accepts that climate change is a serious problem, giving them grounds to sue if they can show that the 2050 goal is inadequate to prevent them experiencing

  • The IPCC tells us we will not get to net zero carbon emissions without nuclear fission for energy, Are these children on board with that in any way.?

    The more nuclear power for electricity means less demand for coal and oil. That extra might go to travel by land and air. But if natural gas is so cheap then that might mean more people driving with natural gas cars. Hybrid cars will likely be the norm before too long. Nuclear powered civilian ships coming soon,

    Industrial coal use should soon become no longe

  • Wrong defendents (Score:3)

    by groobly ( 6155920 ) on Saturday September 30, 2023 @12:41PM (#63889615)

    Haha. They need to be suing God. Er, I mean Allah.

  • Or, you know, they could go to school, study, and help find solutions

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