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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

See you in court, citizens tell govts on climate change

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Megan Rowling -
Environmentalists in France and Ireland are pushing forward with legal cases aimed at forcing their governments to step up action on climate change, motivated by a 2018 flagship ruling that the Netherlands must cut emissions faster to keep its people safe.
In October, a Dutch appeals court said the government had “done too little to prevent the dangers of climate change and is doing too little to catch up”, ordering it to ensure planet-warming emissions are at least 25 per cent below 1990 levels by the end of 2020.
Tessa Khan, a lawyer with the Urgenda Foundation which brought the Dutch case on behalf of nearly 900 citizens, said this and other ongoing climate legal actions are based on the principle that governments must meet their obligations under human rights law and the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change.
“(These cases) all spring from the same sort of inspiration and the broad notion that our governments have the duty to protect us from threats of this scale that they have contributed to knowingly,” said Khan, who is co-director of the Climate Litigation Network.
In France, four non-governmental groups, including Greenpeace and Oxfam, fired the starting gun on December 17.
They sent a “preliminary request for compensation” in a 41-page letter to the French prime minister and a dozen government ministers, denouncing the state for failing to take concrete and effective measures to combat climate change.
The government has two months to respond, and if it fails to give a satisfactory answer, the groups are preparing to file a full legal action with the Paris Administrative Court in March.
Armelle Le Comte, climate and energy advocacy manager at Oxfam France, said the ripple of lawsuits on climate action around the world — from Europe and North America to Pakistan and Colombia — reflected growing urgency as the impacts of extreme weather and rising seas become more visible.
Governments, including France, have talked a lot about tackling climate change, but have not done enough in practice, she noted.
“So I think it is not surprising that more citizens, charities and NGOs… decide that legal action is maybe the answer,” she said.
CELEBS ON CAMERA
In the meantime, the NGOs have been raising awareness about the case and the need for stronger climate action in France through a YouTube video featuring celebrities such as actress Juliette Binoche, and writer and film director Cyril Dion.
They also launched an online petition in support of what they are calling the “Case of the Century” that has garnered nearly 2.1 million signatures in about a month.
— Reuters



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