Two environmental organizations sue EU over its climate targets
Published: Tuesday, Aug 27th 2024, 16:50
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Two environmental organizations have taken the European Commission to a European court over "inadequate" climate targets set by member states. The plaintiffs based their case on the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights, which had condemned Switzerland in a similar case.
The organizations CAN Europe and Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) announced on Tuesday that the Commission had assigned "insufficient" climate targets to the member states, which could violate the commitment of the Paris Climate Agreement of 2015.
In April, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) condemned Switzerland for failing to take adequate measures to combat climate change in what environmentalists described as a "historic" ruling, which is to apply to all 46 member states of the Council of Europe. All 27 member states of the European Union (EU) recognize the ECHR.
This time, the plaintiffs are targeting the EU and its member states, which are supposed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030 compared to 1990 levels. Specifically, in their complaint, the two organizations are calling on the Commission to revise the permissible emission values downwards.
Originally, the 27 EU countries were to submit plans to the European Commission in summer 2023 detailing their measures to achieve the target of reducing emissions by 55 percent by 2030 and finalize them by the end of June 2024, taking into account the recommendations from Brussels.
In December last year, the European Commission came to the conclusion that all 21 plans it had received and assessed at the time would only lead to a 51% reduction in emissions at EU level. The roadmaps of the individual countries had to be updated by June 30, 2024, but Brussels had only received four roadmaps by this deadline.
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