Lawfare « JoNova

A win: Australian Federal Court tosses out high schoolers climate case

The good news is that the experts are very unhappy:

Today’s disappointing federal court decision undoes 20 years of climate litigation progress in Australia

The Conversation

The federal court today unanimously decided Federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley does not have a duty of care to protect young people from the harms of climate change.

The ruling overturns a previous landmark win by eight high school students, who sought to stop Ley approving a coal mine expansion in New South Wales.

The bad news is that these same experts can’t see how profoundly silly their reasoning is:

So why was Ley successful? The federal court’s 282-page judgment offers myriad reasons for why no duty should be imposed on the minister. But what emerges most clearly is the court’s view that it’s not their place to set policies on climate change. Instead, they say, it’s the job of our elected representatives in the federal government.

Well, do we live in a democracy or don’t we?

If only Jacqueline Peel and Rebekkah Markey-Towler could persuade us that coal is a killer, they wouldn’t need to go to court to force their opinions on […]

Court rules Germany needs more carbon action. Who cares what voters think? Young people have right to climate protection.

How to wreck a democracy: Let judges decide complex national policies based on who sues first. What could possibly go wrong?

German climate change law violates rights, court rules

BBC

Germany’s climate change laws are insufficient and violate fundamental freedoms by putting the burden of curbing CO2 emissions on the young, its highest court has ruled.

It says the law fails to give enough detail on cutting CO2 emissions after current targets end in 2030. “The provisions irreversibly offload major emission reduction burdens on to periods after 2030,” it found.

Like the EU legislation, Germany’s domestic climate change law provides for a 55% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2030.

But the German Constitutional Court said on Thursday that current measures “violate the freedoms of the complainants, some of whom are still very young” because they delay too much of the action needed to reach the Paris targets until after 2030.

Since when did young people have right to be protected from climate change?

It’s time for other young people to sue the court, and the government. Germany’s climate change laws are wildly expensive and pointless, and will have no measurable […]