Urgenda lawyer Roger Cox (at left in black robe) after winning the historic Dutch climate case. Photo by Urgenda / Chantal Bekker and republished with permission. This post by Sophia V. Schweitzer was originally published on Ensia.com, a magazine that highlights international environmental solutions in action, and is republished here as part of a content-sharing agreement. On June 24, 2015, a court in The Hague ordered the Dutch government to act faster in its duty to protect its citizens against the effects of climate change. This marks the first time the issue has been legally declared a state obligation, regardless of arguments that the solution to the global climate problem does not depend on one country’s efforts alone. The decision was based on various branches of law, including, most importantly, human rights. In effect, it makes the Dutch government accountable for greenhouse gas emissions on its own territory, an outcome other countries may also need to heed. The government, the court said, must ensure that Dutch emissions in 2020 will be at least 25 percent lower than those in 1990 — the amount the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report says is needed from industrialized countries if the world is to not exceed 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) warming and avoid the worst consequences of climate change. Dutch political leaders had been planning to cut emissions by up to 17 percent within the next five years. “Our case lets politicians know that they can’t let climate change happen. They have a duty to act, be it legally or morally,” says Dennis van Berkel, legal counsel to the Urgenda Foundation, which, supported by about 900 co-plaintiffs, initiated the suit. The Dutch, whose country lies largely below sea level, have reason to worry about climate change. But they live in a country that has resources to adapt. People in poorer countries, who have contributed least to climate change and are also often least well prepared to respond, are likely to suffer the most. It’s for them that the Dutch victory is critical, says van Berkel. “The rights of our co-plaintiffs are central, but people outside of the Netherlands will be even harder hit by climate change,” he says. “The ruling will encourage others to appeal to human rights when it comes to climate change threats.” Which brings up the big question: Is the Dutch court ruling a landmark for the entire globe? In 2008, the International Council on Human Rights Policy in Geneva, Switzerland, wrote in a report about climate change and human rights: “As a matter of law, the human rights of individuals must be viewed in terms of state obligations.” But the world has long been grappling with international agreements for such obligations; from the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to repeated Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change — COP — meetings, the best efforts have struggled to gain traction, in large part because political actions have not kept pace with promises made. Aware of that gap, citizens have tried to litigate political leaders into action, but prior to the Urgenda (a portmanteau of “urgent agenda”) case there were no victories. In 2005, for example, the Inuit Circumpolar Council filed a petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, based in Washington, D.C., claiming that global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions from the United States violated the Inuit people’s right to sustain their traditional ways of life due to destruction of the Arctic environment. But the commission dismissed the complaint due to lack of sufficient evidence. “The obligations are clear,” says Wim Voermans, a professor of constitutional law at Leiden University in the Netherlands. “But when they aren’t kept, can citizens then make a claim that it’s a country’s non-acting that’s endangering them? That’s the challenge. … It’s hard to prove direct causalities in civil litigation.” Facing coastal erosion, the village of Kivalina, Alaska, sued several large energy companies, claiming that global warming had resulted in its forced relocation. Flickr: Photo by ShoreZone (Flickr/Creative Commons) In 2008, the village of Kivalina, Alaska, sued several large energy companies claiming that global warming had diminished sea ice formation, forcing the village to relocate. The case was dismissed based on judicial determination that decisions about permissible levels of greenhouse gas emissions should be made by the executive and legislative branches, not by the courts. “The real problem is, who has what power?” says Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University Law School.