How science bolstered a key European climate-change case

This year, more than 2,000 Swiss women over the age of 64 are waging a legal battle at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.

Called Senior Women for Climate Protection Switzerland (KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz), the association is suing the Swiss government in Europe’s highest human-rights court for not doing enough to combat climate change and to protect their health from related heat risks.

Scientific Evidence and Legal Advice

It is a landmark case and its success hinges largely on the scientific evidence. A ruling is expected at the end of this year at the earliest. Given the high stakes, we decided to contribute as a group of interested and concerned academic specialists at the University of Bern, Switzerland. We represent fields including climate, health, social and political sciences; economics; ethics; Swiss constitutional and administrative law; and human-rights and public international law. We supplied independent scientific evidence and legal advice to the court in the form of an amicus curiae (‘friends of the court’) brief. We are one of more than 20 groups to do so in this case.

Threats to Life and Health

The KlimaSeniorinnen argue that their rights to life and to private and family life are threatened by global and regional warming caused by human activities. Older people are more likely to die from the effects of excessive heat, and women are more at risk than men. The Swiss government bears responsibility, the women contend, because it has consistently failed to substantially reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions to lower these risks.

Demands for Action

Specifically, the association asked the court to order Switzerland “to put in place all necessary measures” to do its fair share “to prevent a global temperature increase of more than 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels” by adopting “the legislative and administrative framework necessary to effectively protect the Applicants’ right to life and family and private life”.

Legal Cases on Climate Change

This case, along with two other leading cases pending in the court, will eventually clarify whether, and to what extent, the 46 states under the court’s jurisdiction are legally obliged to mitigate climate change to protect people against harms to health.

Rise in Climate Lawsuits

Legal cases involving climate change are on the rise. As of May 2023, around 1,550 cases have been litigated since the Paris climate agreement in 2015, compared with only 800 in the previous 28 years (1986–2014). In nearly 55% of all cases in which the courts have made an interim or final decision, the outcome has been favourable to climate action. Since 2019, higher courts in the Netherlands, Ireland, France and Germany have ordered their governments to strengthen climate mitigation efforts on the basis of human-rights obligations. Whether the KlimaSeniorinnen case is won or lost has wide ramifications: it will set the course for future law on climate change across Europe.

Challenges in Climate Lawsuits

Nonetheless, many climate lawsuits have failed, often owing to unsatisfactory scientific evidence or inadequate judicial treatment of it. The KlimaSeniorinnen case bears a similar risk. It stems from litigation begun in 2016, which was dismissed by the Swiss Federal Administrative Court in 2018 and the Swiss Federal Supreme Court in 2020. Those judges held that the older women were “not particularly affected”, that this was a political rather than a legal issue, and that there was “still time” to combat dangerous climate change. Those judgments were widely criticized at the time for being disengaged with science. Since then, the evidence base around heatwaves and other climate impacts has strengthened.

Lessons from the KlimaSeniorinnen Case

Decide where to focus your intervention

In April 2022, the European Court of Human Rights gave the KlimaSeniorinnen case priority status and referred it to its Grand Chamber. This happens when a case raises a serious legal question — here, to what extent, if at all, is climate change a human-rights issue under the European Convention on Human Rights? This opened a window for third parties to file interventions. In July 2022, we sent such a request to the court, which it granted in October. This gave us just six weeks to assemble our evidence, which we submitted in December 2022.

Target evidence specific to the case

It is important to focus only on details that are directly relevant to the case at hand, in our experience. For instance, rather than citing general facts about heat stress from global studies, we narrowed our evidence to studies in Switzerland. We also tackled the reasoning Swiss courts had previously used to dismiss the case.

Set climate targets in wider context

To assess whether Switzerland’s climate measures are sufficient to protect against these threats, we merged analyses from climate and political sciences. The country has signed and ratified the Paris agreement, joined the Glasgow Climate Pact to strengthen its mitigation commitments and put in place emissions-reduction targets for 2030 (a 50% cut from 1990 levels) and 2050 (net zero). Despite these actions, we showed how its current path to reducing emissions is grimly inadequate.

Observe scientific integrity while recognizing values

Scientists contributing third-party evidence must maintain their ideals of neutrality, integrity and reliability, but they should also be realistic and aware that briefs might be used in court in ways that could politicize the contents. Interveners must recognize that assessments of evidence are not about finding absolute truths, but are informed by ethical and political views and values.

Consider the wider reach of the intervention

Messages from third-party interventions spread beyond a particular case. They might have a lasting influence on other judgments — either by altering the outcome of one case or by informing precedents for others. They increase the legitimacy of proceedings by infusing them with diverse views, such as public interests or minority opinions that litigating parties might not include. And they make complex scientific information accessible, clear and manageable for both judges and the wider public to discuss.

Learn from interdisciplinary work

Communicating with diverse groups can be hard, but brings benefits. For example, we learnt that judges find it easier to grasp heat-related deaths in terms of numbers of people rather than percentages of a population. As researchers, we realized that questions around sex and gender differences in health responses to climate change were under-studied. Assessing Switzerland’s performance in climate law and policy required fresh types of evaluation that governments are not currently doing.

SDGs, Targets, and Indicators

1. Which SDGs are addressed or connected to the issues highlighted in the article?

• SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being
• SDG 13: Climate Action
• SDG 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions

2. What specific targets under those SDGs can be identified based on the article’s content?

• Target 3.9: By 2030, substantially reduce the number of deaths and illnesses from hazardous chemicals and air, water, and soil pollution and contamination.
• Target 13.1: Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters in all countries.
• Target 16.3: Promote the rule of law at the national and international levels and ensure equal access to justice for all.

3. Are there any indicators mentioned or implied in the article that can be used to measure progress towards the identified targets?

• The number of heat-related deaths among older women and the percentage of deaths attributed to climate change-induced heatwaves can be indicators for Target 3.9.
• The implementation of legislative and administrative frameworks aimed at protecting citizens from climate-related health risks can be an indicator for Target 13.1.
• The number of climate-related cases brought to court and the outcomes of those cases can be indicators for Target 16.3.

4. SDGs, Targets, and Indicators

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Source: nature.com

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