PORTUGAL: Regional court gives priority to climate complaint

In September, six young Portuguese people submitted a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights. Their complaint was against 33 of the Council of Europe’s 47 member states for their failure to take effective action on climate change and the harm that will be done to their future lives and livelihoods. Far from viewing the complaint as frivolous on the grounds of the ages of those making it, the Court not only accepted the complaint but also found that it should be dealt with as a matter of priority, raising the prospect that some of Europe’s big emitters, including Germany, Poland and Russia, could be asked to answer for their climate failures.