A “historic” first. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) examines on Wednesday the alleged climate inaction of States by examining two cases targeting Switzerland and France. Bern is sued by retirees who denounce the effects of global warming on their health, while Paris is sued by the former mayor of a town threatened by water. This is the first time that the ECHR, which sits in Strasbourg, has heard climate petitions in public, in a context where complaints to compel States to act for the climate are increasing in Europe.
In 2019, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands ordered the government to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 25% by 2020, after a complaint from an environmental association. And at the end of 2021, the French state had been condemned by a Parisian court in the “Case of the Century”, a collective of four NGOs supported by a petition of more than 2.3 million citizens. The Swiss case will open the proceedings at 9:15 a.m., followed by the French case at 2:15 p.m. The Court should not render its decisions for several months.
“It’s a historic event,” said Anne Mahrer, 64, one of the spokespersons for the association “Les Aînées pour la protection du climat suisse”. Supported by Greenpeace Switzerland, this association has more than 2,000 members, with an average age of 73 years. About fifty will make the trip to Strasbourg, Ms. Mahrer told AFP. For 20 years, “all reports show that everyone is affected” by global warming, particularly seniors, and even more so “elderly women”, “particularly vulnerable in cardiovascular or respiratory terms”, she argues.
Before the ECHR, his association intends to invoke several violations by the Swiss Confederation of articles of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights, in particular that guaranteeing the right to life. The action of the “Elders” to force Switzerland to do more for the climate started in 2016, with a series of unsuccessful appeals. In the end, the federal court, the supreme judicial authority in Switzerland, had essentially considered that “we were not affected in any particular way”, annoys Ms. Mahrer. However, Switzerland, “a rich country […] which should be exemplary and which is not”, is “extremely impacted by climate change […] our glaciers are melting”, alarms the former ecologist MP.
The other file will be that of the former mayor of Grande-Synthe (North), Damien Carême, who has since become a European deputy for Europe Écologie-Les Verts (EELV). In 2019, he had, in his own name and as mayor, seized the Council of State for “climate inaction”, believing that his town, located on the coast, was threatened with submersion. The highest administrative court had agreed in July 2021 with the municipality, leaving nine months to France to “take all useful measures” in order to bend “the curve of greenhouse gas emissions” to be in agreement with the objectives of the Paris agreement (-40% by 2030 compared to 1990).
Mr. Carême’s request on his own behalf had, however, been rejected and he had seized the ECHR. The MEP maintains that France’s “failure” to take the necessary measures to meet the objectives affects him “directly” since it “increases the risks that his home will be affected” by the rising waters, the Court indicates in a communicated.
The challenge, “is to recognize the violation” of the Convention “due to the particular exposure of Grande-Synthe to the risks of submersion linked to climate change and, more broadly, to recognize the inadequacy of the legal regime […] in France to limit as much as possible “the damage incurred, analyzes Théophile Bégel, lawyer with Corinne Lepage of Mr. Carême.
“The stakes are extremely high,” Me Lepage told AFP. “If the European Court recognized that climate deficiency violates the rights of individuals to life and to a normal family life, this case law would apply in all States of the Council of Europe and potentially in all States of the world”. The ECHR will examine, no doubt after the summer, another major climate case, that of young Portuguese who have assigned their country as well as 32 other States for their supposed inaction against global warming.
