So, what we have here is a bunch of youts who have basically asked courts to restrict their freedom and life choices while increasing their cost of living, and a bunch of boomers who have already had their good lives looking to restrict that of the youts
Portuguese Gen Z and Swiss boomers await pivotal court rulings on climate change
Europe’s top human rights court will rule on a trio of climate change cases this week brought by individuals from a range of ages and backgrounds across the continent, potentially prompting governments to rethink their efforts to reduce emissions.
The most prominent case is led by Portuguese nationals, aged from the early teens to mid-20s, bringing the claim that the 32 governments, including 27 EU member states plus Norway, Turkey, the UK and Switzerland, failed to adequately cut the emissions behind global warming.
The court will on Tuesday also decide on a case brought by a group of senior Swiss women, mainly in their 70s, who claim that Switzerland’s inadequate climate policies violate their right to life and health, arguing their age and gender put them in a high-risk category for temperature-related mortality.
The third case involves a former French mayor of the Grande-Synthe municipality, a low-lying north-eastern coastal area vulnerable to sea rise.
Each case has argued before the Grand Chamber in Strasbourg that the governments involved are breaching human rights by failing to protect the applicants against the damage from climate change.
The Portuguese youth said that their right to life, privacy and family, and to be free from mental or physical torture, under the European Convention of Human Rights, had been infringed by multiple years of extreme heat and wildfires in their country. They said they had not been able to attend school or leave their homes, and struggled to sleep as temperatures topped 40C.
As usual, the defense, and the judges, should be asking questions like “are you practicing what you preach? Have you ended your own use of fossil fuels?” to the plaintiffs. Oh, and perhaps “do you understand that if I rule in your favor it will restrict your own lives?”
