OAP Marxists win climate change court case that could have massive implications for everyone.
In a landmark court case, the European Court of Human Rights has found the government of Switzerland guilty of 'failing to do enough to combat climate change'.
Reuters reports 'The European Court of Human Rights’s (ECtHR) decision on the case brought by more than 2,000 elderly Swiss women set a precedent that will resonate across Europe and beyond for how courts deal with a growing trend of climate litigation.'
But in a sign of the complexities of climate litigation, the court rejected two similar climate-related cases, one brought by a group of six Portuguese young people against 32 European governments and another by a former mayor of a low-lying French coastal town.
The Swiss women, known as KlimaSeniorinnen, argued their Government’s climate inaction put them at risk of dying during heatwaves. In her ruling, Court President Siofra O’Leary said the Swiss Government had failed to meet targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions and that there had been gaps in its domestic regulatory framework.
“It is clear that future generations are likely to bear an increasingly severe burden of the consequences of present failures and omissions to combat climate change,” O’Leary said. …
The cases before the 17-judge panel in Strasbourg, France, are among the increasing number of climate lawsuits brought by communities against governments that hinge on human rights law.
Global civic movement Avaaz said the court’s Swiss ruling had opened a new chapter in climate litigation. “(It) sets a crucial legally binding precedent serving as a blueprint for how to successfully sue your own government over climate failures,” Ruth Delbaere, legal campaigns director at Avaaz, said.
The verdicts, which cannot be appealed, could compel the Swiss federal Government to take greater action on reducing emissions, including revising its 2030 emissions reductions targets to get in line with the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit).
Now, Switzerland's biggest political party have demanded a withdrawal from the Council of Europe after the ruling. Swiss People's Party (SVP) slammed the verdict, calling the decision by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg 'scandalous'. 'Switzerland must withdraw from the Council of Europe,' the SVP said in a statement, adding that the court's job was to 'dispense justice and not make policy'.
The ECHR ruled that countries including Switzerland - and Britain - must do more to protect their citizens from the consequences of climate change in a landmark ruling that sided with a group of 2,000 Swiss women against their government.
Greta Thunberg was in the courtroom as the The European Court of Human Rights ruling was announced and afterwards smugly said to waiting reporters: 'These rulings are a call to action. They underscore the importance of taking our national governments to court,'
Fears are that this ridiculous ruling will open the floodgates to other such cases and will give credence to any number of death cults and fringe groups such as Just Stop Oil, Extinction Rebellion and Youth Demands.