Created November 25, 2022 | 16:25
Reading time: 2 minutes
Activist Greta Thunberg joined the process
Photo: APA/AFP
MMore than 600 young people, including climate activist Greta Thunberg, have filed a lawsuit against the Swedish state for its lack of climate action. “Never before has a climate law case of this magnitude been introduced into the Swedish legal system,” said Ida Edling of the organization Aurora. The organization started the process and said it was submitted digitally to a court in Stockholm on Friday.
The lawsuit has been in preparation for nearly two years and has now been filed amid criticism of the new right-wing government’s climate policy. “So if we win, there will be a verdict after the state is required to do its part as part of the global measures needed to reach the 1.5 degree target,” Edling said. At the end of 2015, in Paris, the international community agreed to limit global warming to well below two degrees, but if possible to 1.5 degrees compared to the pre-industrial era.
In recent years, organizations and citizens have repeatedly taken to the courts to accuse their governments of failing to act on climate change. The initiative is the first of its kind before Swedish justice, but six young Portuguese activists have already taken Sweden, along with 31 other countries, to the European Court of Human Rights for alleged inaction on global warming.