Hopes had been high for a legal turning point ahead of the rulings in the three cases.
The Paris Agreement set targets for governments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The Swiss government said it would examine measures it should take following the ruling.
Alain Chablais, the lawyer who represented Switzerland in court, warned it might take “some time”.
The hard-right Swiss People’s Party, the country’s largest political party but which has only two of seven seats in the government, called the decision a “scandal” and an “interference” in domestic policy, and called for Switzerland to withdraw from the Council of Europe.
Anne Mahrer, a member of Elders for Climate Protection, said the association would be “watching very closely” to make sure the government complied.
‘Climate inaction’
The court decisions came as Europe’s climate monitor said March this year had been the hottest on record.
In a second case, the court dismissed a petition from six Portuguese, aged 12 to 24, against 32 states including their own because the case had not exhausted all avenues at the national level.
Their case was not only against Portugal but also 31 other states—every European Union country, plus Council of Europe members Norway, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.
The case also named Russia,which was expelled from the Council of Europe after its invasion of Ukraine, though the court still hears cases against Moscow.
In a third case, the court rejected a claim from a former French mayor that the inaction of the French state risked his town being submerged under the North Sea.
The court found that Damien Careme, former mayor of the northern French coastal town of Grande-Synthe, was not a victim in the case as he had moved to Brussels at the time of his complaint in 2021.
In 2019, he filed a case at France’s Council of State—its highest administrative court—alleging “climate inaction” on the part of France.
The court ruled in favor of the municipality in July 2021 but rejected a case he’d brought in his own name, leading Careme to take it to the ECHR.
The European Convention on Human Rights does not contain any explicit provision relating to the environment.
But the court had already ruled in cases related to waste management or industrial activities that based on its Article 8 states have an obligation to maintain a “healthy environment”.
© 2024 AFP
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Top Europe court chides Switzerland in landmark climate ruling (2024, April 9)
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