Three claimants in their 20s say their rights to life have been breached because of inadequate roadmap to solve emergency.
Following similar cases in France and Germany - where the governments were ordered by their national courts to be more specific and urgent in tackling climate change and providing a more detailed road map - three UK students are following suit, claiming their human rights are being breached by the government’s failure to act decisively on the climate crisis.
Adetola Stephanie Onamade, Marina Tricks and Jerry Amokwandoh, all students in their early 20s, will today ask for a judicial review of government actions to cut national carbon emissions.
The claimants say that despite enshrining a net zero goal by 2050 in law and parliament declaring a climate emergency, the government does not have an adequate roadmap to match the scale of the crisis.
Frustrated at the pace of action, they will argue that the UK has disregarded their rights to life, family life and not be discriminated against, which are protected under articles 2, 8 and 14 of the Human Rights Act. The youngest claimant, Tricks, 20, said she felt she had a duty to hold her government accountable.
In January, the UK became one of states ordered to respond to a case in the European court of human rights by a group of children and young people from Portugal who want much more ambitious action to meet the Paris agreement’s maximum warming target of 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.