France condemned for failing to act against climate change

The state has not acted against global warming, thus not respecting the commitments made with the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. With this motivation, the Administrative Court of Paris sentenced France to a symbolic fine of one euro. But the gesture is strong, the verdict states that the state is held responsible for an inaction on this front it is the first time that this has happened and the environmentalists themselves speak of a historic sentence.

It all started two years ago when four NGOs, including Greenpeace and Oxfam, started a judicial process, widely relaunched on social networks with a petition signed by over 2.3 million citizens in less than a month. It is a historic victory for the climate, a "revolutionary sentence commented the NGO lawyers. The court acknowledged the existence of an ecological prejudice, however, giving itself two months before ruling on the need to order the French state to take the necessary measures against the emission of greenhouse gases. However, as of today, inaction will be deemed illegal.

The French state could be obliged to act in two ways: with fines to compensate for damages with money or with a series of objectives that should be achieved in fixed terms, which is the preferred option of the complainants. In the hearing held on January 14, the NGOs (in addition to Oxfam France and Greenpeace France, the Nicolas Hulot Foundation and Notre Affaire à tous) had insisted that the administration had not respected some legal texts in which it assumed commitments to face the global warming, in particular the Paris Agreements and the National Low Carbon Strategy on the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. "The general idea is that the government takes quick and strong measures to reduce CO 2 emissions ," the spokeswoman for Greenpeace explained.

The initiative was launched in December 2018 when the four NGOs sent a letter to several ministers to criticize the administration's inaction and ask for compensation for the damage caused by this attitude. In the absence of a satisfactory response, in March 2019 they had initiated the proceedings before the justice. In the process, the government denied the allegations and pointed out that, with its 2019 energy and climate law, it has tightened targets and has set itself the goal of a 40% decrease in fossil fuel consumption by 2030 and to achieve carbon neutrality in 2050.

In a video posted on social networks after the ruling, several celebrities who support the platform, such as actresses Marion Cotillard or Juliette Binoche , cheered on the success. For former French Minister of Ecology Nicolas Hulot , whose foundation is one of the four complainants, the sentence "is the victory of those who understand the urgency of the climate crisis".