Climate change has been a political topic for more than 20 years and has only gotten more severe. A Dutch lawyer realized this meant many executive and legislative branches of government are not up to effecting policy changes needed. He decided to ask for assistance from the nation’s judicial branch:
“Look at our neighbours: Germany and Denmark are leading the world on this issue. They have very strong economies, they innovate, they have thousands of people working in the green business. They are about to reduce 40 per cent of their emissions by 2020. Netherlands needed to be held to account.”
Last June in a landmark decision, a Netherlands court agreed and ordered the state to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 25% over the next five years in order to fulfill its duty of care to protect its citizens from the harmful effects of climate change.
Now the same lawyer is consulting with environmental advocates around the world to prepare similar suits. He thinks the Canadian government is a prime target and spoke at a conference here last week to help lawyers get started. After all what are Charter rights and freedoms without a viable biosphere to live in?
“Canada will be 26 per cent above the 1990 emission levels in the year 2020. For a developed nation, that is just shocking, it’s unbelievable. I did not know (Canada) was so far. I would hope that the legal community here would look into the possibility (of) a similar litigation.”