International Politics

[benji]

The European Court of Human Rights's ruling, in favour of the more than 2,000 Swiss women who brought the case, is expected to resonate in court decisions across Europe and beyond, and to embolden more communities to bring climate cases against governments.

The Swiss women, known as KlimaSeniorinnen and aged over 64, said their government's climate inaction put them at risk of dying during heatwaves. They argued their age and gender made them particularly vulnerable to such climate change impacts.

In her ruling, Court President Siofra O'Leary said the Swiss government had failed to comply with its own targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions and had failed to set a national carbon budget.

"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.

One of KlimaSeniorinnen's leaders, Rosmarie Wydler-Wälti said she was struggling to grasp the full extent of the decision.

"We keep asking our lawyers, 'Is that right?'. And they tell us 'it's the most you could have had. The biggest victory possible'."

I ain't going to read this shit to see how they could possibly get from "at risk to heat waves" to "reducing local emissions is mandatory." Apparently giving all these women free air conditioning would still be violating their human rights?