Ground-breaking crowdfunded case demands that states make more ambitious emissions cuts.
Young activists from Portugal have filed the first climate change case at the European court of human rights in Strasbourg, demanding 33 countries make more ambitious emissions cuts to safeguard their future physical and mental wellbeing. The crowdfunded legal action breaks new ground by suing multiple states both for the emissions within their borders and also for the climate impact that their consumers and companies have elsewhere in the world through trade, fossil-fuel extraction and outsourcing. The plaintiffs – four children and two young adults – want the standard-setting court to issue binding orders on the 33 states, which include the EU as well as the UK, Norway, Russia, Turkey, Switzerland, and Ukraine, to prevent discrimination against the young and protect their rights to exercise outdoors and live without anxiety.
By Jonathan Watts. The Guardian. September 3, 2020.
