Ten families, including children, from Portugal, Germany, France, Italy, Romania, Kenya, Fiji, and the Swedish Sami Youth Association Sáminuorra, brought an action in the EU General Court seeking to compel the EU to take more stringent greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions. Plaintiffs allege that the EU’s existing target to reduce domestic GHG emissions by 40% by 2030, as compared to 1990 levels, is insufficient to avoid dangerous climate change and threatens plaintiffs’ fundamental rights of life, health, occupation, and property.

The lawsuit has two major components. First, plaintiffs bring a nullification action, asking the court to declare three EU legal acts as void for failing to set adequate GHG emissions targets. The three EU legal acts are: Directive 2003/87/EC governing emissions from large power generation installations (ETS); regulation 2018/EU on emissions from industry, transport, buildings, agriculture, and etc. (ESR); and regulation 2018/EU on emissions from and removals by land use, land use change, and forestry (LULUCF). Plaintiffs argue that inadequate emissions reductions violate higher order laws that protect fundamental rights to health, education, occupation, and equal treatment as well as provide obligations to protect the environment. These higher rank laws include: the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (ChFR), the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and the Paris Agreement. Plaintiffs ask the court to order that the three emissions reductions laws remain in force until improved versions of the Acts can be enacted. Art. 263 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU) is the basis for this procedural action.

The second action concerns non-contractual liability. Article 340 of the TFEU provides a mechanism for injunctive relief when three conditions are met: 1) there is an unlawful act by the EU institution(s), 2) the unlawful act is a serious breach of a law that protects individual rights, and 3) there is a sufficient causal link between the breach and the damages.

Demanded relief is an injunction to compel the EU to set more stringent GHG emissions reductions targets through the existing framework of the ETS, ESR and LULUCF regimes in order to bring the EU into compliance with its legal obligations. Plaintiffs assert this would require a 50%-60% reduction in GHG emissions below 1990 levels by 2030 or whatever level the court finds appropriate. 

The European General Court did not rule on the merits, but dismissed the case on procedural grounds, finding that the plaintiffs could not bring the case since they are not sufficiently and directly affected by these policies (“direct and individual concern” criterion). The court concluded that the plaintiffs did not have standing to bring the case because climate change affects every individual in one manner or another and case law requires that plaintiffs are affected by the contested act in a manner that is “peculiar to them or by reason of circumstances in which they are differentiated from all other persons, and by virtue of these factors distinguishes them individually.” The court rejected plaintiffs’ argument that the interpretation of the concept of ‘individual concern’ referred to in the fourth paragraph of Article 263 TFEU is not compatible with a fundamental right to effective judicial protection under Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. Nor did the court find that plaintiffs could bring the case under the other possible criteria under the fourth paragraph of Article 263 of the TFEU which would require that they were direct addressees of the legislative package in question or they contested a regulatory act that was of direct concern to them.

The plaintiffs appealed to the European Court of Justice on July 11, 2019, arguing that the EU General Court erred in concluding that plaintiffs lacked standing under Article 263, and by holding that plaintiffs needed to establish standing under Article 263 in order to bring a claim for non-contractual liability.

On March 25, 2021, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) upheld the General Court's order and held the plaintiff's claims inadmissible on standing grounds for failing to demonstrate that they were individually impacted by Europe's climate policy. The ECJ rejected plaintiffs' arguments that the General Court did not take into account the climate harms specific to them. Rather, the ECJ found sufficient the lower court's reasoning that "the fact that the effects of climate change may be different for one person than they are for another does not mean that, for that reason, there exists standing to bring an action against a measure of general application," and that doing so would render standing limitations meaningless. Further, the ECJ rejected the argument that, by invoking an infringement of fundamental rights, the plaintiffs had established standing. "[T]he appellants’ reasoning, in addition to its generic wording, leads to the conclusion that there is locus standi for any applicant, since a fundamental right is always likely to be concerned in one way or another by measures of general application such as those contested in the present case." The ECJ thus dismissed the appeal and ordered plaintiffs to pay costs incurred by the European Parliament and the Council of the EU. 


Armando Ferrão Carvalho and Others v. The European Parliament and the Council

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Armando Ferrão Carvalho and Others v. The European Parliament and the Council - judgment

Filed

International

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An aim to achieve a quantifiable outcome within a given time-frame, set by an institution such as a national government.

Policy instruments are techniques or tools used by governing authorities to promote certain policies in order to achieve predetermined goals. Put simply, instruments are how a government tries to achieve its goals, with this taxonomy being focused on national policy instruments.

Risk is the potential for adverse consequences resulting from the dynamic interplay between (climate-related) hazards, exposure, and vulnerability of affected human or ecological systems.

Groups  of people who are adversely affected by climate change or the response to it

A set of principles, processes, and practices that build economic and political power to shift from an extractive economy to a regenerative economy.

Justice is the ethical and political framework that addresses fairness, including issues of responsibility, rights, and structural inequity.

Renewable energy means all forms of energy produced from renewable sources in a sustainable manner.

Fossil fuel is a generic term for non-renewable energy sources such as coal, fossil gas, and oil (including crude oil, and petroleum products), that can be used for electricity and heat generation. Fossil fuels are hydrocarbons formed from pressurised and heated organic material buried over millions of years.

Molecules in the atmosphere that play a key role in the greenhouse effect by trapping heat radiating from Earth’s surface.

Area of the economy in which actors engage in identical or related activities.

In human systems, the process of adjustment to actual or expected climate change and its effects, in order to moderate harm, increase resilience or exploit beneficial opportunities. In natural systems, the process of adjustment to actual climate change and its effects; human intervention may facilitate adjustment to expected climate change and its effects.

The management and allocation of funds, assets and investments to meet various objectives

Tradable permits are market-based tools that grant permission for specific activities, frequently used to regulate emissions. These permits can be issued within a trading system to manage environmental impacts.

A target to reduce the prevalence of a greenhouse gas over a specific time frame

Using laws and the legal system more broadly to protect vulnerable entities

Either money or something of monetary value is transferred between two or more organisations, people or countries.

Hot temperature extremes are daily maximum temperatures  that were exceeded on average once in a decade or once in 50 years, and includes heatwaves.

The release of heat-trapping gases, primarily from human activities such as burning fossil fuels, agriculture and industry.

A long-lived, colourless gas, chiefly emitted from fossil fuel combustion, deforestation and cement production.

Extreme weather refers to events where a weather variable exceeds (or falls below) a threshold. Meaning it is significantly different from the average or usual weather pattern.

A drought is an extended period of unusually dry weather marked by a significant and sustained lack of precipitation, falling below a specific threshold over a large area for more than a month

Social inclusion is the process of improving the terms on which individuals and groups take part in society—improving the ability, opportunity, and dignity of those disadvantaged on the basis of their identity.

Oil is a combustible liquid fossil fuel composed mainly of hydrocarbons, occurring as crude oil and refined into petroleum products such as petrol, diesel and kerosene.

People with different national or cultural traditions from the dominant population

Social and cultural groups that share collective ancestral ties to the lands and natural resources where they live, occupy or from which they have been displaced

This sector involves the wholesale and retail selling of goods.

Activities that provide lodging, food, and entertainment services to guests, including hotels, restaurants, and resorts.

Activities that involve the cultivation of crops and raising of livestock for food, fibre, and other products essential for human life and industry.

Activities that relate to the production of goods and services from forests.

Slow onset events evolve gradually from incremental changes over many years or from increased frequency or intensity of recurring events. As defined in the Cancun Adaptation Framework (2010), slow onset events include risks and impacts from rising temperatures, desertification, biodiversity loss, land and forest degradation, glacial retreat, ocean acidification, sea level rise, and salinization.

Armando Ferrão Carvalho and Others v. The European Parliament and the Council - judgment

Target

Policy instrument

Risk

Impacted group

Just transition

Fossil fuel

Greenhouse gas

Economic sector

Finance