Traditional dutch windmills and houses near the canal in Zaanstad village, Zaanse Schans, ... [+]
The Dutch Supreme Court on Friday ordered the country’s government to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25% from 1990 levels, in what is already the toughest and most stringent ruling handed down to a government to take immediate action on the climate emergency.
The case, brought by the Urgenda Foundation in 2013, claimed that the government, by failing to meet the minimum target for reducing carbon dioxide emissions set by scientists to try to combat the climate emergency, was endangering the human rights of Dutch citizens under national and European Union laws. The Dutch government, which already lost the case in the district and appeal courts, has now in the Supreme Court, and that could mean the closure of coal-fired power stations), making the case a model for many other countries.
There are now 1,442 cases that have been filed in countries around the world in various stages of proceedings, in what is the vanguard of an area of environmental law called atmospheric trust litigation, a concept based on the doctrine of public trust and international responsibility related to government control over natural resources for the benefit of the public. Another high-profile case is Juliana vs The United States, brought by a group of 21 students led by Kelsey Juliana, who garnered attention in 2016 when District Court Judge Ann Aiken substantiated the argument that access to a clean environment could be considered a fundamental right, thus allowing the case to continue. Since then, the Trump administration has sought to dismiss the case on a number of grounds, delaying its hearing, but in the process has also generated much more media and expert attention.
Do governments act against the human rights of their citizens when they fail to follow the experts’ recommendations in trying to address the climate emergency? Everything seems to indicate that this is indeed the case, and that the idea of seeking justice in the courts makes sense. What should Australian citizens do when they see their government’s decisions on energy and environmental policy clearly leading them to climate suicide? And what about Americans, when they see the Trump administration abandoning the Paris agreements? Should we not consider denouncing our city halls when it is clear that their lack of action is forcing us to breathe in gases that poison us?
The wheels of justice turn slowly, but legal action is one of the best ways to force politicians to take action over the climate emergency. Obviously, this does not mean that we cannot find other ways, either by showing leadership as managers or by changing our consumption habits to favor companies that demonstrate their environmental awareness. Tackling the climate emergency is still possible, and it will require, in addition to recognizing that the emergency exists, ending the current situation whereby trillions of dollars go to subsidizing fossil fuels, air transport or cars, whose owners don’t pay enough to compensate the emissions they generate.
We need immediate action from our politicians who, in many cases, fail to act because they are incapable of planning for the future or, in some cases, plainly irresponsible. The Netherlands has just shown us that even when this is the case, we still have the possibility of denouncing them in order to try to change things.
