European General Court Dismisses `People`s Climate Case´

On 22 May the European General Court reportedly dismissed a prominent climate case brought by  10 families from Portugal, Germany, France, Italy, Romania, Kenya, Fiji and the Swedish Saami Youth Association Sáminuorra, who claimed that the EU`s  2030 climate goals are not ambitious enough. They claimed that the EU fails to protect their fundamental rights of life, health, occupation and property. The case resembles the Dutch Urgenda case that has been discussed earlier in this blog. The General Court dismissed the case on formal grounds, rather than on the merits. The criterion of `direct and individual concern´ for citizens proved to be the crucial hurdle in the case. Plaintiffs pledged to appeal in front of the highest EU Court, the European Court of Justice (ECJ).

The dismissed case involved people from various countries that took legal action in front of the European General Court with the aim to compel the European Parliament and the European Council to increase their efforts to mitigate climate change. The case attacked the so called `2030 goals´ of the European Union, according to which a 40 per cent decrease in domestic greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, as compared to 1990 levels, is required. The plaintiffs feel that this is not enough.

The European General Court now rejected the case on formal grounds. The judgement itself has not been made public by the court, but has been sent to the plaintiffs directly on 8 May 2019. According to the network of NGOs that supported the case as well as newspaper reports, it was rejected on the basis of a strict interpretation of the criterion `direct and individual concern´ by the court. To have standing in front of the General Court plaintiffs need to show, inter alia, that their individual fundamental rights are infringed by EU actions in a particular, direct way. The court allegedly argued that, although human-made climate change is real and happening, it affects everybody with high probability, not just the plaintiffs. Due to insufficient `direct and individual concern´, the case has, thus, been rejected.

The ruling, if upheld by the ECJ at an appeals stage, could prove to be a landmark in European climate litigation. NGOs are currently bringing several cases, both at EU and Member State level, to test the waters and see if some courts accept claims brought by individuals against climate change related policies. While rulings like the Urgenda case in the Netherlands showed that, in principle, individuals can compel their governments to ramp-up climate change policies, the real hurdle in European climate litigation now seems to be the proof that one individual actually has standing in a matter that affects all individuals in Europe, although some more severely than others. The NGOs and plaintiffs pledged to pursue the case further and want to bring it to the European Court of Justice.

The case has been pursued by NGOs like German Watch and others with much effort. NGOs used the internet to brand the case as `People`s Climate Case´. It was one of the first cases with a dedicated, specially designed own webpage that is running in several languages, featuring youtube videos and interactive `meet the Plaintiffs´ section.