Four Portuguese children and two young people, “exposed to extremes of heat”, want the European Court of Human Rights to judge a case against 33 countries in the field of climate, announced today the GLAN, the organization that promotes the initiative.
“Four Portuguese children and two young people brought an unprecedented process on climate change to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg,” said the Global Legal Action Network, an international non-profit organization.
According to the same source, young people ask the court to hold 33 countries, including Portugal, responsible for driving the climate crisis.
“The process, which is presented with the support of GLAN, focuses on the growing threat that climate change poses to their lives and to their physical and psychological well-being. If they are successful, the 33 countries would be legally obliged, not only to increase cuts in emissions, but also to combat international contributions to climate change, including those of their multinationals ”, defends the organization.
The presentation of the process occurs after Portugal recorded the warmest month of July in ninety years.
“An expert report prepared by Climate Analytics for the process describes Portugal as a climate change hotspot that is destined to withstand increasingly deadly extreme heat conditions,” argue the defenders of the process.
Four of the young people live in Leiria, one of the regions most affected by forest fires that “killed more than 120 people in 2017”, they say. The other two applicants live in Lisbon where, during the August 2018 heat wave, a new record temperature of 44 degrees was established.
In the complaint, they claim that the governments targeted are not categorically enacting deep and urgent cuts in polluting emissions, “necessary to safeguard the future of young claimants”.
The target countries for the process are: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Croatia, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Malta, Netherlands, Norway , Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Turkey and Ukraine.
GLAN defines itself as an organization that works with the goal of bringing innovative legal actions across borders to address powerful actors involved in human rights violations and recurrent injustices, working with affected communities. It has offices in the UK and Ireland.
