Youth group sues European states in landmark case for failing to tackle climate change

A group of six young people from Portugal is suing 32 European governments in a landmark lawsuit for their inaction regarding climate change which, they argue, discriminates against youth by posing a risk to their health and future.

As reported by Al Jazeera, the countries include all EU member states, Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Russia and Turkiye. It will be heard at the European Court of Human Rights at the end of September before a panel of 17 judges in Strasbourg, France.

The plaintiffs, the youngest member of whom is just 11, will argue that government inaction on climate change discriminates against young people and poses a tangible risk to their lives and health.

It is the first time that so many countries have had to defend themselves in front of any court in the world, with Global Legal Action Network, which is supporting the lawsuit calling it "unprecedented in its scale and in its consequences".

According to the leader of the group, Claudia Duarte Agostinho, a 24-year-old ER nurse, the devastating forest fires from 2017 which killed over 100 people in Portugal were what triggered the young Portuguese to take action.

In court, the group’s legal team is expected to argue that the worsening climate crisis is breaching their rights to life, privacy and family life, to be free from torture, inhuman or degrading treatment, and to be free from discrimination on grounds of their age.

They will demand the 32 governments to adopt and meet much higher targets for cutting down on their emissions by reducing the production and export of fossil fuels, lowering emissions from overseas consumption and forcing companies based in their territories to clean up their global supply chains.

Experts predict that the European governments will argue that they are already doing all they can to cut emissions and that they only have obligations to people living in their own territories.

The publication notes, that this is not the first such climate trial, recalling a group of older Swiss women who accused Switzerland in March 2023 of breaching their human rights by failing to do enough to cut national emissions. They also argued that they were particularly vulnerable to climate change due to their age.