The News
South Korea’s top court ruled Thursday that the absence of legally binding targets for carbon emission reductions violated the rights of future generations to be protected from climate change, and ordered the government to set out concrete plans through 2049.
Climate campaigners won a partial victory after the court said the country’s failure to specify targets for the years 2031-2050 — when the country hopes to have achieved carbon neutrality — transferred an “excessive burden” onto future generations.
However, the court did not find fault with the government’s goal of cutting carbon emissions by 35% from 2018 levels by 2030, and rejected plaintiffs’ calls for more specific implementation plans.
SIGNALS
Ruling could be a catalyst for further climate action in Asia
The ruling is the first of its kind in Asia, climate advocacy groups said, and there are hopes it could set a precedent for similar initiatives, including in Japan, where plaintiffs recently filed a lawsuit against 10 thermal power companies and called on the government to commit to stronger emissions-reduction plans. While Japan has a less active civil society and weaker judiciary than South Korea, their climate policies are similar, and Japan won’t want to fall behind its neighbor, another climate lawyer told Dialogue Earth. Asia is responsible for nearly all the world’s growth in emissions, primarily due to rapid economic development and industrialization, representing a major challenge in the global fight against climate change, a columnist argued in Forbes.
The ‘rights turn’ in climate litigation
The youngest plaintiff in the South Korean case was a 20-week-old embryo, and one lawyer told Agence France-Presse that their age helped to exemplify people’s desperation for change. The latest wave of climate litigation is distinguished by a “rights turn” — the use of human rights and constitutional law arguments by plaintiffs — while its geographical scope, once primarily US-based, has shifted towards to Europe, Climate Action Europe wrote. That said, US-based lawsuits — even ones that were thrown out— have inspired copycat efforts around the world, such as in Colombia, Germany, and Belgium, a legal expert told Politico’s E&E News following the dismissal of the landmark youth-led Juliana v United States case in May.