Our Take 3: Any chance the real consequence of this decision is to confirm concerns that Europe is headed hopelessly toward an unworkable ecocracy?
Our Take 3: Any chance the real consequence of this decision is to confirm concerns that Europe is headed hopelessly toward an unworkable ecocracy?
Our Take, With Doug Sheridan….
The FT writes, Europe’s top human rights court has ruled that a government’s failure to cut greenhouse gas emissions can be considered a violation of citizens’ rights, in a decision that will set a benchmark for future climate litigation.
The case brought against Switzerland by a 2,000-strong group of senior Swiss women, aged mainly in their 70s, was successful on the grounds that it failed to protect citizens from the “serious adverse effects of climate change on lives, health, wellbeing and quality of life” and by not meeting its own climate targets.
“That the court unequivocally affirmed that the climate crisis is a human rights crisis will have a huge significance,” said Joie Chowdhury, senior attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law, who was present for the European Court of Human Rights rulings. She said the court had also “made a strong pronouncement” on the science of climate change in a ruling that “will be influential all across Europe”.
The judges voted that the Swiss government had “critical gaps” in its domestic legislation on climate change including a failure to quantify “through a carbon budget or otherwise” national greenhouse gas emissions.
The judgment marks the first time an international court has made a pronouncement on the legal obligations of governments in the face of the climate crisis.
Tom Cummins, partner at the law firm Ashurst, said companies and financial institutions should “review these cases carefully. Corporate climate litigation often relies on human rights arguments ... The decision in the case against Switzerland will likely encourage claims of this nature."
The International Court of Justice, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights are all deliberating similar cases related to governments’ liability to protect citizens from climate change this year.
Our Take 1: Is this ruling really going to change anything related to the climate? After all, Switzerland is responsible for 0.1% of global GHG, and has reduced its gross emissions by almost 6% since 1990. If it had doubled this decline, it would have reduced global emissions by a total of 0.05%.
Our Take 2: And is it really a good precedent that courts are now playing the role of divining what Earth's climate would have been but for certain actions not taken by prior generations or current governments?
Our Take 3: Any chance the real consequence of this decision is to confirm concerns that Europe is headed hopelessly toward an unworkable ecocracy?