Does government inaction on climate change violate human rights?

That is the question the European Court of Human Rights will for the first time seek to answer in Strasbourg, France, as it rules this week on three separate climate cases.

The verdicts will set a precedent for future litigation on how rising temperatures affect people’s right to a liveable planet.

The following lays out what is at stake.

(First,) six Portuguese youths are suing 32 European countries for allegedly failing to avert catastrophic climate change that they say threatens their right to life.

At the same time, thousands of elderly Swiss women have argued that their government’s “woefully inadequate” efforts to fight global warming put them at risk of dying during heatwaves.

In the third and final case, Damien Carême, a former mayor of the French commune of Grande-Synthe, is challenging France’s refusal to take more ambitious climate measures.

  • BrightCandle@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    3 months ago

    Its a pretty reasonable argument. The entire point of human rights is that states can’t break them and they are risking the lives of billions with every bit of increase in CO2 they allow to occur. Given they have signed up to treaties to not do so and are still carrying on suggests that they are performative in saying they will act while not doing so. The crack downs on protests around climate change have been shameful but I guess after 4 decades of inaction politicians just don’t want to hear people screaming at them since they never intend to act.

  • Neuromancer@lemm.eeEnglish
    13·
    3 months ago

    I’m not European but I would like America to come up with a real strategy that is sustainable. I’d like to see hybrids become a priority. I’d like to see more a push to nuclear power. I get coal is cheap but nuclear is better and cleaner. Even if it’s not the cause of climate change, it’s still better for the air we breathe.