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Legal Action Against UK Government Abdication Of Paris Climate Change Commitments

Today, 1 May 2021, marking two years since Parliament declared a climate emergency, three young people, Adetola Onamade, 24, Marina Tricks, 20 and Jerry Amokwandoh, 22, working with the climate litigation charity Plan B and the Stop The Maangamizi Campaign, served legal proceedings on the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak and the Energy Minister, Kwasi Kwarteng, over the Government’s failure to honour its Paris Agreement commitments.

Since the lives and future of the Claimants depend upon implementation of the Paris Agreement, that failure violates their rights to life and to family life, which are protected by Articles 2 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) as implemented into UK law by the Human Rights Act 1998

While the Government’s climate failures threaten us all, as young people, with families in the Global South, the Claimants are exposed to disproportionate and discriminatory impacts and risks: the Government’s complicity in the climate crisis also breaches ECHR Article 14.

Ahead of the UK’s presiding role at the critical UN climate talks in Glasgow (COP26), the claim lays bare the dishonesty of Boris Johnson’s claims to “international climate leadership”.

First, the Paris Agreement requires an urgent and radical reduction of emissions.

Instead, the UK Government is granting new oil and gas licences, investing £27.4bn in the road network, expanding aviation, and prior to an intervention from the US Government, was supporting the opening of a new coal mine in Cumbria.

In March, the Public Accounts Committee revealed that the Government has “no plan” to implement its net zero target.

Second, the Paris Agreement demands that governments prepare for the impacts of climate change. The Committee on Climate Change, the Government’s own statutory advisers, has exposed the reality: “UK plans have failed to prepare for even the minimum climate risks faced”.

Third, the Paris Agreement requires finance flows to be aligned to the temperature threshold of 1.5˚C. To the contrary, a massive 15% of global carbon emissions are supported through the City of London, while the FTSE100 is heading for 4˚C warming.

Fourth, the Paris Agreement requires countries such as the UK, which have historically contributed most to the crisis through their past emissions, to support those in Global South on the frontline, with finance and tech transfer and to provide compensation for those suffering loss and damage.

Instead, the Government has decided at this time of global crisis to cut vital supply lines of finance (ie the repayment of carbon debt) from the communities most exposed to the impacts and risks.

It is the basic responsibility of the Government to safeguard the lives of the population from threats too complex for individuals to address on their own. The Government’s climate hypocrisy is not only a violation of our trust and its duty of care to our young people. It is a breach of the law, both UK and international.

The courts are becoming a critical site of resistance against climate breakdown and ecocide. This case connects to a growing wave of successful climate litigation around the world, including recent victories before the highest courts in the Netherlands, Ireland and (only this week) Germany.

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has fast-tracked a climate case and ordered 33 Governments, including the UK Government, to respond.

Juries in the UK, once they have heard the raw evidence, are refusing to convict climate protestors.

The Government’s response, meanwhile, is to threaten peaceful protestors with 10 years imprisonment. The Government has 21 days to respond to the Claim. The High Court will then decide whether to grant permission for a full hearing.

The Claimants seek:

• a Declaration from the Court that the Defendants' failure to take practical and effective measures to meet their Paris Agreement commitments breaches the Claimants' rights under the Human Rights Act 1998 (ECHR Articles 2, 8 and 14);
  
  
• ii) a Mandatory Order that the Defendants implement, with appropriate urgency, a legislative and administrative framework sufficient to meet those commitments.

The full details of the legal case against the UK Government can be downlaoded from the E-Library here and/or by clicking on the image above left. The top right image links to the original press release document.

Source: PlanB Press Release

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