For me, this is a great story. It is a momentous story but it's got somewhat hidden within the news media, today. I'll briefly discuss what happened.
And I'm thankful by the way to The Times newspaper for this. It takes place in Switzerland. A group of 2000 women have won a climate change case against Switzerland at the European Court of Human Rights. The ruling has been described as "monumental" by experts.
The group who describe themselves as Senior Women for Climate Protection convinced the judges at the court that the Swiss government's failures to tackle carbon emissions had breached their duty to protect citizens from the adverse effects of a rapidly warming world.
It's a first for the court as well as for the world. The ruling was described as a landmark by Joana Setzer, an expert on environmental litigation and an associate Professor at the London School of economics. She added that "The significance of the victory in the KlimaSeniorinnen [Senior Women for Climate Protection] case is monumental."
Campaigners against climate change have turned to the courts. Their intention: to push governments to act faster. In Holland, Shell was in court defending themselves against their failure to improve on their carbon targets.
The women referred to won under article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. This article covers governments' duty to protect people from the impact of climate change.
They decided that Switzerland had critical gaps in its plans for cutting greenhouse gases and that the country had failed to meet their earlier goals.
"The Swiss authorities had not acted in time and in an appropriate way to devise and implement the relevant legislation" as was stated in the judgement.
The senior attorney at the Centre for International Environmental Law said that this ruling "leaves no doubt: the climate crisis is a human rights crisis".
Greta Thunberg is a member of the above-mentioned Senior Women for Climate Protection group.
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