Dutch citizens sue their government for failing to reduce carbon emission within targets set by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to avoid global temperatures rising by more than 2C. The lawsuit charges that failing to reduce carbon emissions is a violation of human rights. I imagine they are referring to Article 3 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person."
Climate change threatens life. It is an existential threat that has the ability to wipe civilisation as we know it off the face of the Earth.Our knowledge of the effects of climate change is still an evolving science. We are now starting to understand that not only do we cause sea levels to rise, eroding away and submerging the very soil on which we live, we also cause ocean and atmospheric currents to change. Weather patterns are morphing in ways that we do not yet understand.
Weird things are going on in Siberia. Thawing permafrost releases methane trapped for eons in to the atmosphere. Huge craters are left behind. When scientists first saw these gigantic holes in the ground–one was 230 feet deep and 50 feet in diameter–nobody knew what they were. Meteorite impacts or the work of aliens?
It turns out that Earth is suffering an upset stomach from a serious dose of greenhouse gas poisoning. The result in this case is the Earth farting methane gas that has 20 times the greenhouse gas potency of CO2 in to the atmosphere. A catalyst is set in motion. Warming creates increased warming events. Nobody really knows if this can be stopped.
Heating oceans do not just mean rising sea levels. They also mean that species that are tolerant to certain temperatures but not others are displaced from their habitat. Some find new territory; others are on the edge of an evolutionary cliff with nowhere to go. This includes many commercially-important species.
Similar disruptions and displacements are happening on land. Agriculture and fisheries are directly impacted by climate change.Choose the way in which climate change will impact humans: Is it starvation? Is it having nowhere to live because of submerging land? Is it death and destruction in ever more powerful and destructive storms? How many more New Orleans can be rebuilt without wrecking economies?
It is clear that the Dutch legal action comes not a day too late. It is a sign of people around the globe becoming aware of climate change and the fact that we must do something to stop it now. Unfortunately the Dutch legal action is not the first of its kind. Other civil society legal challenges have been made and failed. But they do not stand alone. In Belgium lawyers are preparing for court proceedings against their government for failure to act as well. They have the support of 8,000 Belgian citizens.
It is remarkable that the Netherlands does not comply with the rulings of the IPCC. Much of the country is reclaimed land and below sea level. I lived there for many years. It was always a weird sight to drive on a road along a dyke and see a boat on the canal above your head. It goes to show that humans are bad threat assessors.
In the Caribbean we haven't done much better. We are Small Island Developing States, among the countries most at risk from sea level rise and extreme weather, but we seem quite apathetic about climate change.Some islands do their part. Both Aruba and Bonaire aim to be carbon-free for electricity production by the year 2020. Part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, they show more sense than their Mother Country.
Costa Rica says it will achieve 100 per cent renewable energy by the year 2021. They already have run their country on hydro–and geothermal power for the first 75 days of 2015. I don't know which of these countries will achieve the carbon-free goal first, but my money is on Costa Rica.
T&T is the world's second highest per capita producer of greenhouse gasses. Apologists who cannot imagine a changing world point to our fossil fuel industry and heavy industries at Point Lisas as the "excuse" for this. They forget that scientists now say that we have to leave up to two-thirds of global fossil fuels in the ground to avoid a 50 per cent chance of breaching the 2C temperature-rise limit. That is in itself an arbitrary figure chosen more for politics than rationale. The fact that scientists say they are only 50 per cent sure of this does not reassure.
Maybe one day islands like Aruba and Bonaire or Caricom neighbours will sue T&T's government for endangering their "right to life, liberty and security of person."