Lawyers are going to court to stop climate change. And it might just work

Sierra Robinson has had enough. The 17-year-old from Cowichan Valley, Vancouver Island, Canada is one of 15 plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed against the Canadian government in late October. She says

the government has been “talking for a long, long time about how climate change is a problem, yet they’re continuing to contribute to that problem instead of taking action on it. With this lawsuit, we’re asking them to take that action.”

Climate scientists expect higher sea levels and
rising temperatures to make storms such as Hurricane
 Katrina from 2005 more destructive.

The suit is calling on the government to develop and implement a plan that will accelerate the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. According to the claim, the current government’s negligence – which has resulted in increasingly alarming levels of global warming – has violated young people’s rights to life, liberty and security. 

Robinson’s words echo those from a previous court case about climate change – one that was won, against all odds, by the party demanding a more effective climate policy.

In that instance, it was Urgenda, a Dutch activist organisation promoting a sustainable society. The defendant in that 2013 case was the Dutch state. 

Read the story from The Correspondent by Jelmer Mommers - “Lawyers are going to court to stop climate change. And it might just work.”