European court rules human rights violated by climate inaction
By Paul Homewood
h/t Various!
This is deeply insidious:
A group of older Swiss women have won the first ever climate case victory in the European Court of Human Rights.
The women, mostly in their 70s, said that their age and gender made them particularly vulnerable to the effects of heatwaves linked to climate change.
The court said Switzerland’s efforts to meet its emission reduction targets had been woefully inadequate.
It is the first time the powerful court has ruled on global warming.
Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg joined activists celebrating at the court in Strasbourg on Tuesday.
"We still can’t really believe it. We keep asking our lawyers, ‘is that right?’ Rosemarie Wydler-Walti, one of the leaders of the Swiss women, told Reuters news agency. "And they tell us it’s the most you could have had. The biggest victory possible."
"This is only the beginning of climate litigation," said Ms Thunberg. "This means that we have to fight even more, since this is only the beginning. Because in a climate emergency, everything is at stake."
The ruling is binding and can trickle down to influence the law in 46 countries in Europe including the UK.
The Court ruled that Switzerland had "failed to comply with its duties under the Convention concerning climate change" and that it had violated the right to respect for private and family life.
It also found that "there had been critical gaps" in the country’s policies to tackle climate change including failing to quantify reductions in greenhouse gases – those gases that warm Earth’s atmosphere when we burn fossil fuels like oil, coal and gas.
The Swiss women, called KlimaSeniorinnen or Senior Women for Climate Protection, argued that they cannot leave their homes and suffer health attacks during heatwaves in Switzerland.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-68768598
You can almost sense the gloating at the BBC!
But when was it a human right to have perfect weather?
And all of those who starved in the famines of the Little Ice Age in Switzerland, when the glaciers came down from the mountains and wiped out their farms and villages, must be turning in their graves at these eco-loons complaining about a bit of warm weather.
But this is not just a local issue. As the BBC notes, there will be a trickle down effect. What we have here is a bunch of unelected judges imposing their far-left policies on politicians, and ultimately the public who elect them.
After all, there are not even any laws being broken here.
The ECHR was never set up for this purpose, and is now abusing its authority. Indeed this is what the European Convention on Human Rights says is its remit:
https://www.coe.int/en/web/human-rights-convention/our-rights
Time for us to pull out.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Unlike the weather, this really is a disaster, it will further embolden the scruffy unkempt ne’er-do-wells to disrupt the lives of ordinary people. Very bad news indeed.
The reality Artyjoke is that, far from fitting your description, the disrupters are nearly always well-dressed, comfortable, well-educated middle class people who seem to have a total distain for the practical concerns of ordinary people.
Point taken. I was thinking of the red paint “artists” that were filmed redecorating Labour HQ the other day.
The spray painters are neo-Trustafarians (neo-colonialist and neo-eugenicist too of course) their well dressed very comfortable parents are strangely proud of them. I remember very well (50 years ago) the two ultra lefties that I shared university lodgings with suddenly getting hair cuts and smart pinstriped suits to head off for interviews at ‘daddie’s bank’. The period of larping has merely been extended. Perhaps they blow their brains with so many drugs on their ‘gap yaahs’ that they aren’t fit for any cushy parent leg up and activism (covertly government funded in many cases) is all that’s left.
How can a Judge possibly prove beyond any reasonable doubt that manmade Climate was/is responsible for any change whatsoever that has never happened previously (pre 18th Century)?
They’re under no obligation to prove that – they simply take it for granted.
I’m confused. Why are the plaintiffs under no obligation to, if not prove their case beyond any reasonable doubt, at least demonstrate that it has a high degree of scientific credibility? They have attempted to do this by referring to IPCC AR6 re. heatwaves, but their appeal to authority fails miserably and the alleged ‘certainty’ of their scientific evidence could easily be pulled apart if subjected to proper scrutiny by a real court.
Because that’s not how the Court works. Here’s what I think happened:
Having read Judith Curry’s article again, I see she says this: ‘the European Convention on Human Rights guarantees people “effective protection by the state authorities from the serious adverse effects of climate change on their lives, health, well-being and quality of life.’ That seemed unlikely – not least because the Convention was drafted in the early 1990s, i.e. well before climate change became a fashionable concern; it came into force in 1994. However, to be sure, I had a look at the Convention itself. It can be found here: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/European_Convention_for_the_Protection_of_Human_Rights_and_Fundamental_Freedoms#Article_2_–_Right_to_life. As you can see, it’s a fairly simple document and, sure enough, it makes no mention of climate change – none at all. So what’s going on? Well, it seems that the Court must have decided that the Convention should have included a right to climate protection and determined therefore that it did – under it seems the fairly bland provisions of Article 8 (‘Right to respect for private and family life‘) which to my mind deals with a totally different subject.
That would seem to me to be a most blatant example of judicial ‘we know what’s good for you’ law making.
Yes, but I’m still confused. Even if the ‘Right to respect for private and family life’ somehow now bizarrely includes within its remit an implied right to protection from hot weather, the onus must still be upon the plaintiff to demonstrate unequivocally that the heatwaves which have prevented them from enjoying their family and private life are a direct result of climate change. In view of the fact that it is officially recognised that only 30% of heat related deaths between 1991-2018 can be attributed to climate change via some very dubious ‘science’ no doubt), how did the plaintiffs demonstrate that the heatwaves which interfered so grievously with their human rights were ALL or MAINLY caused by climate change?
I’m not surprised that you’re confused. The extraordinary reality is that the European Court of Human Rights doesn’t act like as court of law as you and I understand it. No, it just knows that the consequences of climate change are a breach of human rights and therefore, if the Convention didn’t explicitly cover that, well it should have done and we will interpret it as if it did. Hence the ruling which is really an instruction to the Swiss Government. As I’ve said, it’s a most blatant example of judicial ‘we know what’s good for you’ law making. And because that’s how it works, the ‘plaintiffs’ (more realistically applicants) were under no obligation to demonstrate anything.
I’ve just some across this very interesting article by Dr. David McGrogan, Associate Professor of Law at Northumbria Law School, who explains all this more clearly than I can: https://dailysceptic.org/2024/04/10/the-human-right-to-be-protected-from-the-effects-of-climate-change/.
Sounds insane. In that case, the ‘judges’ are not judges, the ruling is not a judgement and there can hardly be a legal precedent set for other proper courts to follow.
Jaime: they’re judges because they’re described as judges. That’s the mad way it works. A finding is supposed to become the law in countries that have signed up to the Convention – precedent not required. I hope we’ll simply ignore it – but the Greens wouldn’t like that and I wouldn’t be surprised if the Supreme Court agreed with them.
This is just the expressed prejudices of a clique of unelected jumped up fascists. The ECHR has nothing to do with right or wrong, good or evil or even legal or illegal. It is a convocation of demagogues dictating prejudice. A commisariat, a tribunal of neonazis, but not a court of law. Exit now, ignore it and bin it.
The judge is auditioning for a job in WEF New World Order. The wackier the betterer.
It wasn’t a single judge, it was a panel of about 17 judges. And they’ve already got well-paid secure jobs at the ECHR.
Francis Menton of Manhattan Contrarian has just published a most interesting article (https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2024-4-9-the-latest-on-international-efforts-to-save-the-planet-through-climate-litigation) about climate litigation. He starts by reviewing a case which started in the federal government in the District Court for Oregon in 2015. In 2017 he’d written an article describing the case as ‘the stupidest litigation’ because all a litigator had to do was ‘make up a new and sweeping “constitutional right,” find a friendly activist-minded judge, and you can get an order transferring all the significant operations of the legislative and executive branches of the government to a single unelected person operating out of a courthouse in Eugene, Oregon’. Surely, he said, ‘no court would take this seriously’. But of course they did. And he goes on to describe how the matter has developed, followed by an update on other current examples of the absurdity and concluding with a comment on the current Strasbourg case. Worth reading in full, but here’s a snippet. Having cited an extract from the ECHR ruling about the remit of domestic courts being ‘complementary’ to the ‘will of the majority’, he says this:
The answer I suggest is ‘no, there couldn’t’.
‘Progressive’ perhaps? Thanks for article.
There is a good chance that the fascists at ECHR might come to regret this decision if the hoped for surge of the Far Right – BBC/Guardianista speak for normal people – at the EU elections and other national or regional elections comes to fruition. With people not affected by climate change disease and aware of the damage unfettered immigration has caused, the ECHR might find their popularity and support plummeting.
This case has also prompted an article by Judith Curry: https://judithcurry.com/2024/04/09/there-is-no-human-right-to-a-safe-or-stable-climate/#more-31138. Her approach is quite different in that she argues in detail, that there is ‘no human right to a safe or stable climate’. Her conclusion:
An interesting perspective.
The only ‘cleaner energy’ that’s available is nuclear fission but electric vehicles (apart from milk floats using lead acid batteries perhaps) are not clean and electric aircraft and ships with a realistic payload are impossible. Hydrogen vehicles might have a niche with unlimited cheap nuclear electricity. We shall need hydrocarbons to maintain any sort of life for 8 billion people for the foreseeable future. CO2 is plant food and we need more of it to get us through the next ice age. She’s right of course about a stable climate, such a chimera has never existed.
‘Oh my boys, my boys, we are at the end of an age! We live in a land of weather forecasts and breakfasts that set in, shat on by Tories, shovelled up by Labour, and here we are …’
The only ‘cleaner energy’ that’s available is nuclear fission but electric vehicles (apart from milk floats using lead acid batteries perhaps) are not clean and electric aircraft and ships with a realistic payload are impossible. Hydrogen vehicles might have a niche with unlimited cheap nuclear electricity. We shall need hydrocarbons to maintain any sort of life for 8 billion people for the foreseeable future. CO2 is plant food and we need more of it to get us through the next ice age. She’s right of course about a stable climate, such a chimera has never existed.
‘Oh my boys, my boys, we are at the end of an age! We live in a land of weather forecasts and breakfasts that set in, shat on by Tories, shovelled up by Labour, and here we are …’
Oops, apologies!
This is a very bad precedent for democracy, when unelected legal authorities think they can legally enforce laws based on clealy-faked, never-validated, never-proven, unscientific climate mumgo-jumbo pushed by lying, treasonous Uniparty politicians.
Judges (and juries) can make illogical decisions 😦
Were there any non-believers appearing for the “defence” ?
No, as I understand it, what happens is that the proponents make their case and the judges retire to discuss it and decide whether or not they agree with it – and, if the latter, what should be done about it.
If the ECHR list is complete I notice that it doesn’t require democratically elected government by the people.
The only thing these stupid women are vulnerable to, is climate bull and Greenpeace coercion.
AWFULs.
https://spectator.org/five-quick-things-tyranny-awfuls/
Very good, thanks.
‘ woke, messianic causes cited to justify obviously destructive policies, and out-of-control emoting toward those who try to apply the brakes.’
Brings to mind the Xhosa cattle killings.
https://www.siyabona.com/eastern-cape-xhosa-cattle-killing.html
(A suitably woke take on the lunacy which adds to its piquancy)
I just checked the flight departures from Zurich airport. Here is an edited list:
Madrid, Abu Dhabi, Lisbon, Athens, Palma de Mallorca, Tel Aviv, Istanbul, Singapore, Madrid, Palermo
Perhaps the Swiss pensioners should sue the airlines for taking them somewhere too hot. This ruling is absolutely ridiculous = > this court has lost all credibility, if it ever had any.
Also a good graph of Zurich temperatures since 1950:
https://www.worlddata.info/europe/switzerland/climate.php
Thanks Evan, but surely you’re overlooking the fact that Switzerland is evil: it’s the source of 0.08% of total global emissions
Sorry – Euan.
it’s pretty difficult to see exactly what the problem is with Swiss “heatwaves”. Nor why these people can’t cope with the odd day that’s pretty hot when people in other countries cope with much higher temperatures for far longer. Zurich is far less hot than uch of Arizoba and rarely as hot and never as humid as New York.
What a pathetic excuse. The agenda is entirely political. Everything is a ‘human right’; how about our energy prices being driven so high that we can’t afford it? These women are obviously vexatious complainers, trying to influence a change in the world’s order.
It was my misfortune to hear Rowlatt The BBC Ethical Man reporting on this case yesterday. He couldn’t hide his delight at the result
If anyone is interested I now have the listing by World Meteorological Organisation Standard of all Met Office UK weather stationsfrom the Met Office itself. It makes for rather amusing reading. Many of the “records” (ho,ho,ho) that the MET Office/BBC/Grauniad axis like to vaunt are from complete junk sites.
Here is the CIMO Classification guide.
https://www.eoas.ubc.ca/courses/atsc303/Instruments/wmo_guides/CIMO_Guide_2014-Met_Site_Classification.pdf
Class 5 has an error margin of +/-5°C so is out and out junk
Remember of all of those January records set at Achfary, Scotland in December/January. Yep you guessed it a Class 5 junk site. Never mind ,the all time Scottish highest temperature was set at Charterhall……yep you guessed it.
2019 UK record was set at Cambridge Botanic Gardens – guess what…Class 5.
Anyone wants a copy, pop an email address in reply and I will forward it on as soon as possible.
Hi Ray! I wonder what it would take to get some kind of law/standard that said that any organisation posting weather records for public consumption should also state, with similar exposure, what the qualifying standard of the measuring equipment was. And if the standard was below a certain level the numbers derived should be qualified by including an error bar(s).
As for the bizarre ECHR (Swiss) ruling, it reminds me of the years when it was believed that duodenal ulcers were caused by stress: it took a long time before it was shown – and rewarded with a Nobel – that they were caused by helicobacter. Imagine if a law had been passed to make it illegal to cause stress…
There is no logical reason for allowing the laws of man to interfere with and, in effect, overrule the laws of nature. But, in this case, some very rich and powerful – and ultimately, corrupt – people would not argue with this particular case.
Harry, this will no doubt take me quite a while but I am going to attempt a reconstruction of historic temperature data based solely on Class 1 sites i.e. the best. There are painfully few of them, in fact the Central England Temperature Record (now “maintained” by the Met Office) only has ONE – Rothamstead.
Remember this?
Well Santon Downham is JUNK – WMO Class 5 accurate to within all of 5°C (or 9°F). But hey, what does accuracy matter between a few climate deceivers?
You’re a glutton for punishment, Ray, but more power to your elbow! But do you think we’ll ever get TPTB to use class 1 sites in their weather reports? Or, at least, not class 5? KBO. ☺
WMO Class 5 accurate to within all of 5°C
I incorrectly thought that n°C meant n+/- 0.5 °C i.e. a maximum variation of half a degree Centrigrade. Clearly not !
I would be interested to see the list of Met Office UK weather stations by CIMO classification. Do you have a link?
No I was only able to get it by Freedom of Information request as an attachment to the MO email. Leave me (by way of a “reply” ) an email address and I will forward it to you.
carolbaker1952@yahoo.co.uk
Can you confirm it has all (including attachments) come through okay so I can ensure it does for any other requests please.
thanks, Ray
Email received with both attachments. Thank you Ray.
info@brightwellvineyard.co.uk
Sent it over this morning bob. Could you confirm receipt please.
As a separate issue Bob, my back garden runs onto “Railway Hill Vineyard. They have their own weather station. Naturally the vineyard is on a very climatically favourable south facing slope.
What is so notable is that being rural the daytime temperature it records is pretty much the same as recorded in the city area of Canterbury nearby but the night time temperatures fall at least 4 degrees lower and often more. I am convinced this night time urban warmth (especially in winter) is the principle factor in supposed “average” warming going on now.
vickimh234@gmail.com
If you could send a copy that would be great. Thank you.
alhermette@hotmail.com
The West has a death wish. The ‘global south’ which of course is north and east as well as south, all 7bn of them outside the ‘garden’ of 1bn, will continue to look in amazement at our self destruction. This judgement will lead to many more where ‘courts’ composed of individuals totally incapable of making such decisions, will decide our futures. And its one of poverty, reduced living standards, and increasingly totalitarianism. At the same time the war mongering ‘fear struck’ politicians are beating the drums of war with the 7bn, falsely identified as ‘Russia and China’.
The tyrants in Russia and China falsely identify themselves with the 7bn. Preserving the ‘Inner Party’ is what they focus on (as do our lot too of course).
Russia and China look positively benign compared to the EUSSR and its ECHR gestapo and UK poodles.
Sorry to not be my usual gallant self, but these ‘past their sell-by date’ Swiss Misses have achieved (together with 16 of the 17 Activist “Judges”) something useful.
An absolutely first rate additional reason to get the Hell out of the ECHR.
The Judiciary in the UK, who already have form for implementing the most ridiculous decisions of the ECHR, ( generally immigration issues up to now), will unfortunately find it very easy to implement more disastrous and dangerous decisions on us as they follow suite. It will allow the most mischievous individuals, of which we have many, to seek legal aid and bring the country to its knees. This is a very grave situation in my opinion and should be robustly challenged.
Pathetic to say the least, next rule that God got it all wrong and should be castigated for his/her/it’s failings?
And if they could rule that a Christian God got it wrong they could then rule that it would be unlawful to worship Him. ‘They’ could rule that we should all convert to the RoP. (I like to think I’m foolish rather than prescient)
Paul, you say “This is deeply insidious: ” so just to check, … As ‘They’ say ” FFS” … no wonder the world is going to the dogs. Och I’m about to be triggered again by all that nonsense on web searches. Just call a spade a spade, meantime I identify as an old Diesel Engine and will be plodding through the fields where it is dry enough to lift stones ( Rocks are too big to lift and are generally still attached to Mother Earth )
Assuming that the Swiss Government challenge this ruling, as surely they must, this will be the interesting part of the case. All of the USA claims of a similar nature have been rejected i believe.
Surely, the most basic of human rights must be to breath clean fresh air. Should this not be enshrined in law. Somehow we must stop the constant pollution of the air we breath, what falls on plants, crops and animals. The chem trails are an appalling violation and assault on the human right of everyone.
Irony Yes?
Is the ECHRs Party listed in the May elections …..they control how we live maybe we should have the option to vote
The ECHR judgement could be a gift to the Reform party, and it could polarize opinion i.e. you’re either a believer and support the expenditure of trillions of ££££ on the basis of a belief to achieve compliance with the judgement of the ECHR; or you’re a non-believer and refuse to pay trillions of ££££ on the basis of a flawed belief to assist the UK to comply with the flawed judgement of the ECHR.
Chuck Weller
âCharles Weller, Esq.
Cleveland, Ohio 44108
weller1@nxgh.net
216 496 0836
We had a road trip to Switzerland last year to see our daughter who lives there. When we said we would like to visit in August she asked if we were sure as it would be so hot. Anyway we went in August and it was not hot at all, she kept apologising for the bad weather. Apparently Switzerland is responsible for 0.1% of global emissions, not that any amount matters.
We then drove on to Italy, were we really did expect it to be hot after all the reports of boiling weather. It was pleasantly warm and a waiter said it was below average temperature.
Paul, if I may:
https://cliscep.com/2024/04/10/court-in-the-headlines/
A truly ludicrous judgement.
If we believe the models (and I’m not saying we do), temperature increase is baked in for about the next century whatever we do. By which time these 70+ ladies will no longer be with us no matter how cool they are kept.
What would be instructive is to look at the lifestyles of these ladies. Switzerland is a wealthy country and I suspect they enjoy a high standard of living with the carbon emissions that go with it.
The Swiss government should say, OK we’re stopping all fossil fuel next week. See what these ladies think of their human rights then, as a functional economy collapses around them.
I suppose the embodiment of climate evil here is the Swiss government? Will it be able to appeal, or doesn’t the ECHR work like that?
“Blah blah blah,” said Ms Thunberg. “This means that we have to fight even more blah blah blah…” I’m sure she’s happy that someone quoted her opinion. No doubt it made her feel important. Perhaps she’ll be able to spend less time cavorting round the middle east now.
What about all the many more people who die every year from the cold? That fact always gets left out of this argument.
Switzerland is quite a cold country in winter, but I assume everyone living there can afford to be tucked up at home in their fondue rooms…
They need to sue to the ECHR which now has an obligation to also tell the Swiss Govt to stop the weather being cold. Since humans control climate (sic) then humans must cause the temp to go below zero. Insanity now rules.
Indeed. They seem to have taken on custodial duty to everyone.
Those who live in Switzerland who find warmer temperature from Föhn winds oppressive have the easy remedy of a trip part way up their local mountain.
If my experience of encounters with Swiss women is any kind of example, I have found them to be weird and unhinged.
Human rights are under far more threat from net zero policies. Let the court protect us from those.
You will be poor
You will be cold
You will be hungry
You may not travel
Your life will beasty, brutish and short.
Given that cold, wet weather makes my fingers stiff and achy, they are starting down the road of ‘Arthur Aske’ (Arthritis), can I whine and whinge at the ECHR, that I need lots of lovey sun and heat, to keep my fingers working and happy? Cold wet weather is effecting my human rights!