tv Inside Story Al Jazeera September 29, 2023 3:30am-4:01am AST
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to those the know, do those that understand, teach a maverick school headmaster in postal comfort, go fast, determined to change the fortunes of an industry to community played by urban to cape poverty of the legacy of secretary and aggression, arms and students with the knowledge of the ancient greek philosopher participate on your 5th, participate in everybody else's famous young play to a witness documentary on the jersey to the court force. governments act on climate change. a group of young activists assuming thousands of governments in europe and beyond. they argue these governments failed to protect their rights to a healthy environment. so to this case, lead to concerted action on global warming. this is inside the
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hello and welcome to the program on the image of june. a historic climate case has begun at the european court of human rights and stress support. young activists are taking on powerful governments over there alleged in action against climate change . the court's rulings are legally binding on member countries. the legal route seems to be increasingly favored by active is to hold leaders to account, and young people are increasingly at the forefront of climate change. activism could an approach based on child's rights, be the wife way forward and tackling global warming. we have lots of discuss, but 1st let me go so i'm sure we've set it up for us. it's 6 you versus 32 countries. they argue, governments are not doing enough to start until reforming. and the inaction both is listed they have and like the youth age between 11 and 24,
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made their way to the your pin code of human rights to argue that case with the support of all the time of active we are not the 6 we are the 6 representing generation, we are the voices, all the rest of that once to leave alive with this promise and this is good for everyone else. and this, they come from areas in portugal ravaged by was fires and he played the fall of the case 3 years after the cds of forest fires in 2017 killed 66 people. they say the a suffering from inside the over the health and natural disasters. it affects their physical and mental health, their civil, political, and social rights, as well as their dignity. it is therefore crucial to adopt a child rights based approach to the question of climate change and how it affects their human rights. 27, e u. member states, as well as the you case with them in no way russia active key of being sued,
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making it the law, just have a climate case to be heard by a code in stress by more than 18 don't use represent the states. russia has not represented, they say governments understand the threat of climate change from the case outside the courtroom. they say all the right things about the clements emergency. but today, they are denying the reality that that's what we are experiencing is getting worse and worse to the extreme pizza. i am limited in how i exercise and how much time i can spend outdoors. i am forced to stay inside and i struggle to sleep. some night because of the heat and things to the week apartments, policies that the countries are taking a bit. i remain hopeful that the courts will understand the urgency of the situation. and we are side in favor of our case. last month,
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a judge in the us state of montana handed, a historic victory to you. i'm left with an a case involving time to change on here . and yet of the, your pin code of human rights has to move pending a decision in this case is not expected for several months. but with increasing while fires in the face becoming more frequent, plummets lawsuits brought on by youth could become a trend in general. and beyond mickelson chevy for inside story. the. all right, let's go ahead and bring in our guess. joining us in paris, catherine camper. she's head of climate change out a patient program at the organization for economic cooperation and development. and in london, i should call fun. he's the director of climate justice at ox fam us one. welcome to both and thanks so much for joining us today on inside story aspect. let me start with you today. this is
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a landmark case. it's the largest ever climate case to be heard by the european court of human rights from your vantage point. how significant is it's it's, it is very significant. it's the 1st case before the okay. and quarter human rights on climate change. and it is the 1st one sofa only that's targets. 32 different countries that are members of the counselor here. that's how the court. so it raises a whole number of the interesting and broad leading questions and also because it's against so many countries. if the court rules for the plaintiffs, we could have a pretty significant impact on the world as a whole. and as far as a you mentioned that this raises some pretty interesting legal points going forward . what are some of those you consider to be the more interesting legal arguments being made in this case? i'm sure that's the most. um,
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the most challenging one legally is that the, the, the, the people, the, the, the children who brought the come over there which or when they brought the complaint or are, are making claims against 32 different countries for their separate actions. that having an impact on them, normally the court, when it ruled normally the rules on impacts on the state has on people within its direct control. and so the issue of climate change shows how to properly respect human rights. but you know, the courts cannot simply hold that right. stop at borders because emissions don't stop at motors impacts happen externally as well. catherine, i saw you like, let's go, go ahead. are sparks sorry. the surgical court rules correctly. it will hold all these countries liable because all of them are causing the impact that is affecting the plaintiffs. catherine, i saw you are reacting
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a lot to what the osh clock was sitting there and it looked like you wanted to jump in. so please go ahead. no, that's from our i think what he's trying to see the it's on cost, it's across the border issue, but so the impacts of climate change. so the clear, this is how much i gathered from the news thus far as that they're very much constructed in the case on the basis of the impact that they're feeding in their little country, such as good to go as they were describing the health impacts of uh, what fires and extreme heat and they've been suffering over the last 2 years. in katherine let me also ask you about the fact that this summer was the hottest on record. this case is arguing that young people, in particular, a face a future of hardship because countries are simply not doing enough to combat climate change up from your vantage point. or the countries that are named in this lawsuit based on what you've seen, actually preparing to face the effects of climate change very slowly. so, so maybe each time a hope to take some extreme event to get a nice,
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a bit of progress in terms of legislation in terms of extra investments of adapting to climate change. it's nowhere near as much as we would have to do in order to teach the level of, of, of lives and the levels of suffering that we're having today to keep that constantly the future. there's a large amount of investment that is needed and what climate the researchers and experts argue all the time that it's a fraction of the cost to do these, to actually adapt to climate change now. and so it's easy, so to speak, to, to protect our lives, at least in the next, the few decades, not in the long run in the long run, i think without medication for a going any way, but at least in the short run, it will cost a lot less trixie, and as opposed to each time lasting, these extremely events happen and we are not seeing the kind these are making sufficient progress even in the face of the images that we're seeing or across the world. practicing status of our truck. um, one of the core arguments in this case is that, um is this is causing
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a lot of anxiety and distress for young people. they're not just talking about the physical health here when it comes to climate change, the impact is having on health. they're also talking about mental health. how does that differentiate this case from other cases in the past? i mean, there's a long history of looking at a pool in human and degrading treatment as a punishment. not only the mental aspects, not only excuse me, not only the physical ask as to alter the mental aspect. so in that sense they are subject applying that same logic to climate change that has been applied in human rights cases previously addressed by the court. so it's, it's, it's quite logical for them to, to, to, to apply. but yeah, but i mean, the impact. so, i mean, not just just around this. and one thing really, i mean, before, of course,
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this is the case about the impacts of portugal. meaning the case of success or if it will have impacts on places where the impacts of a so much worse. i mean we saw the drought and you smell for good, which was, you know, 99 percent or even a 100 percent caused by climate change. and a, and i mean the, the, it's a staggering the, the amount of impacts on people's lives, health survival. i just like you mentioned that the youth who brought this case, you know, they come from areas in portugal. they've been ravaged by wildfires and, and he waves um, they filed this case 3 years after a series of forest fires in 2017 killed dozens of people. they say they are suffering from severe anxiety because of all this. they say that they are representing an entire generation. this really puts into stark relief, how existential, this issue is for them. and i want to ask you, if you think that this is the kind of case that has the potential to connect with
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the public more because of that. i think, you know, i think that that is actually one of the reasons why this. um, the people who brought this case, you know, did so if it really brings out that element to off on, on the lack of fairness towards the younger generations, the lack of into generational justice, the people making these decisions are really not the people who are mostly going to be affected by it it's, it's that the younger generations in the future generations, because we, we are, we're headed towards a world of sweet degrees warming by, by 2100 and some of the plaintiffs who brought this with the youngest ones. we would still be alive and would face that, you know, most smell it to taste it. catherine, when we know that the occurrence that extreme wildfires is growing with unprecedented damages. and so many countries around the world and, and this case is, is highlighting that to a certain degree i want to talk to you about some of the research that you've done
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when it comes to the growing occurrences of wildfires. how that is impacting communities, how much damage is being caused as a result? yes, thanks for that question. it's uh, it's in fact what part is an issue that we also asked across on different the biome, say in the world to you've had wide science in either betia. that's a, in the, in direct consequences. so then over time, concert kinds of respiratory diseases kills of a 100 thousands of people that estimated 800000 people and wine oriented the country. so in virtual countries, you may not hear so much about about light is not in proportion terms used to see some, some of the, some victims that actually use that i. but nevertheless, i think that the impacts in terms of health are virtually the same. the highest and canada piece here, for example, called on the northern america in the us, thanks for being on of new york city under the nerds of, of air quantity. and we've been only see the results exposed of, of how many,
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how much respiratory distress we suffered and how much or excess of time that you made. so we can observe that very soon. but the consequences danger come down trying to judge. i know most the know the very direct impacts those offered by the community or for very obvious reasons in terms of their own personal assets. but also in terms of the sources of a kind of think about timber. but then the trick up to the entire economy as we've seen in, in, in portable world. so in canada, right, for, if you see the percentage drops and g, b outputs in the use varies extreme events happen. for example, the last 5 years on the 2018 cam tires in california, they produce the damages that we estimate at around 20 beating in us dollars, which is completely unheard of. for a good x stream events of buying cars. we reviewed the, the numbers return before when we talk about extreme flat events, a similar to what we've seen recently,
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but never provide cars. and i think to hear your e, i'm kind of related extremely by knowing that the slower also wants to drop the cost of trimming. no, they don't make damage. and obviously hard to as it just turns, especially in the cabin. if we could just take another step back for a moment, i'm curious to know your thoughts on if you believe that countries, if their policies and if their practices are actually evolving in the face of this increased risk from wild fires. i mean, are we seeing countries actually scale up because often times when these disasters occur it looks as though countries are being more reactive and had not really been proactive in trying to combat this in a different way. oh absolutely, and the dynamics are unfortunately still the same old i've been working on these topics now for the better half the last 2 decades. and that's for changing dynamics of students a. so if you look on spending your take, just think again, one example,
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big 5 cars in the picture, the spending expense, probably expensive to provide card suppression in the last 40 years. if you look at the united states, for example, going to go, you see that spending has increased like tween default for suppressing white card. which card is perfectly fine with the size of wi fi and the frequency that receive . but if you didn't know thing to actual spending on preventing those 5 hers and by all means we know how to prevent disasters, we know how to adapt to them in a better way. the slow wants as ones as well as the sudden on say, once we know what we can do, we can manage our forest better. we can plan our urban environments, but just ways to reduce the why the urban interface. just to give you an example. we know a lot of what we can do to reduce the urban heat. i ended 6, which as you know, is dramatic, especially in your being countries as well. and yet we don't do any of that. we always wage and to an extreme event happens. and this is where we didn't put the money where this is, appreciate you spend no,
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not the total. or we can even show the benefits of, of the cost benefit ratio such measures introducing them early thing compared to what would happen to expose again. so what we're changing is a barrier that subtraction bubble country dog. we've got to know if you're pointed to that already butting the kind of targets that we're discussing here on the gay sion more and more introducing out of taishan more strange and that of taisha target as well. that's that i would interpret as a step in the right direction, but it's very, very silver's aspect i, i want to ask you your thoughts on some of the key arguments on both sides of this case. first, i want to ask you about an argument from the plaintive side. one of the key accusations from the plaintiff is that the fundamental human rights of people are being infringed upon. because the countries in question have failed to adequately reduce human cause. warming how strong of a legal argument is that from your perspective a it's
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a it's, it's a strong argument because they can show a direct line between the state that goes off these governments to reduce emissions and the impacts on their lives. because the lives of, of, of many of those that's the climate science is a, is as becomes so clear that, that's um, you just cannot be questioned. i think the challenge of a menu coming to the government side would be, well, you know, we should us, it's for governments to decide the types of policies that you need adopted to, to, to address that. so the thing is though, i mean the governments, it, i'm not, do you mean they can be, there's a whole range of measures that different policy measures that could be taking during do submissions a, there's no is there's not necessarily one or one of single, a way to get there different ways to get there, but they're not getting to the results. we are. we are headed to
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a world of temperature, the warming of about $2.00 degrees. the governments have said that their target is, is $1.00. and that by the way is not, is actually not a target setting. you based on human rights standards. we are seeing vast violations of people's human rights, food, housing, shelter on the current warming, which is about $1.00 degrees. so, you know, one, the governments i, i'm not setting the right target this setting $1.00 to $2.00, which is itself is sufficient. and then not even meaning that they the, their own plans if you read them, show that they are insufficient. so yeah, they're not, they're not meeting those targets and really government shooting shipping. all that's in the power button on the stand of the health audit and all that that's. and if i was to prevent the harm to human rights and look at any, any government's actions, they don't do the devil mobilizing the to millions that on the billions that are
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needed to shift as to renewable energy, they're not insulating homes. they're not switching from gas to keep them so you know, they're not, you know, they don't put in texas on private. yeah. private jets s u v as a whole, whole range of things. i mean it's, it's, it's really, um, the, their policies are almost visa, magical reality that somehow will encourage you, renewable energy we will put in some, uh, inadequate to call them pricing and, and offsets. and that will result the problem. i mean, he just won't, in any serious scientist, any serious policy make little told what women would show visuals are insufficient and, and, and i know really off measures actually let me get back to you in just a minute with regards to the arguments that are being made by european government lawyers, but 1st let me go to catherine because i did see catherine reacting to some of what you were saying. it looked to me like you wanted to add to the point that aspect was making. so please go ahead better. so just to add that to yes,
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it's true of the strange and you measures that are currently taken cold, perhaps of the quite a bit stronger. and i think it's, you know, cuz it's sort of a multilateralism in that space. he's also taking a huge because they are such hard for negotiations and countries are better very heterogeneous in their positions. but we are making progress. i mean, especially in the developed countries, emissions has been going down. and i think what we're also trying to tell countries as we suppose i'm in the process of making progress, is that we need to tell the stories. and do you want me to noon eastern line behind, engaging in finding climate change and, and as much as i work on the patient as much as my view to use to, to go to the, the impact to the for, and find the measures of how we can adopt and protect our community, strong, easy, but i think it is okay. that'd be fine. positive positive stories and we've been hearing a lot about the this year that actually contributed to reaching some of the what we
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call top climate to be points. and you would see that the as are quite interesting, 1.5 is actually not enough to, to avoid that as triggering these climate tipping points. and why we can only tell the exposed in any given year whether this works for you and tipping points a lot. a lot of what we seen in terms of impact is pointing that it wasn't create a tipping point here. and then we see that it's literally just a high degree holding these 2 big points. will be triggered a lot more in the future. but we're trying to, to, to tell countries, or what we're trying to get. their thinking has owned is really to say, what are the positive temping points in society? how can we turn to tie in favor of transformative action the policy made? and i think this is quite an important story. the opportunities lying in the way that we manage these transitions going forward. as far, let me get back to you now about the arguments in this particular case, european government lawyers say that they accept the impact of climate change. but these cases should be heard in national courts 1st uh their argument is one based
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on jurisdiction. what do you say to that the the, the, the issue with that is that the challenge is, is not, is not national. i mean, in the international court. um, it would be easier to, to hold the government to account for the impact on the people within within that territory. but, so for example, you know, germany has had a litigation in, in the course about the impacts on jim and young people. but the court said that we're not looking at the impact on people outside. and so it will be deeply problematic if jim and publish the friends of decisions. i mean, to hear the base of the impacts on, on jims because the impacts vary between countries and the impacts are worse uh, in, in, in, in, in, in, in countries that are, you know,
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a more vulnerable to the impacts of, of climate change. so, you know, that's, you know, that would be problematic to, to, to deal with these things naturally. robert, recognize them for the trans boundary of situations that they actually are. catherine of last month, a judge in the us state of montana handed, a historic victory to young activists in a case involving climate change in europe at the european court of human rights. there are 2 more climate cases that are now pending. um the fact that there are these 2 other cases pending at the european court of human rights and the fact that there was this victory in montana. do you think that we're going to see more of these types of lawsuits being brought going forward? it certainly shows that climate change is alter rating people's lives directing
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or in directly into formal climate anxieties or so in, in the form of expects that the future opportunities as well. i think this is what they're clearly showing, but we've seen these integrations as well. on the other patient side, we seem to go shows up against local authorities know, responsible actors such as may years. they failed to protect people against heavy stools against law. and finally seeing these mitigations, i think it's an attempt in an environment where a lot of the policy stuff we're working on. i'm not necessarily mandatory, not necessary policies. the federal government, central governments can mandates but so they can only uh, provide guidelines. indian, a lot of authority is done at other levels of government. and in a very different a tends to sort of hold everyone to account and hold this responsible for their dreams. we've seen these, these litigation so i think they're, they're in golf and so symbolic this think i should not be underestimated. and i
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think the more climate change the impact, nice all communities around the world are moving. see, so we can go through the process. the process is happening as far rulings by the european court of human rights are legally binding 4 member states. um, but do you see complications going forward as far as implementation? if the plaintiffs were to be successful in this case, and if that ruling were to be legally binding, how easy would it be to implement? well loving it to the level of invitation of their judgements varies. um, i'd say that most of the countries in question would implement the decision that they may take the time about it. they do generally they and they have the history is where, where a ruling is very, very clear. um it likes payments of compensation for example. that's normally just
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done, but where it requires a strong loan program at a change sometimes that does that, that that does take a while and, and got some government practice each of these. so for example, check the check the public and it's the decisions that have been imposed on it on a non discrimination against roman communities. lots of subtracting there. there are mechanisms by which ministers in the council, if you can hold states to account for implementation. of course, when there's a key judgment, who makes it much easier for the governments to be held accountable by civil society. catherine, let me ask you and please just be a be and be mindful of the fact we have about a minute and a half left. um, do you think that if this case is successful going forward um that a specific mechanism would need to be created to be put in place in order to ensure that enforcement was actually effective? or i think inforcement just in general,
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the kind of policy step for working on that is helpful because we see that where, where you cannot hold anyone's ware county program has been very, very snow and you've been just so whatever it means, tremendous help us getting there and making sure that the times that were sent to we know what targets we need to reach in order to keep track of avoid 5, a degree roaming scenario. we know what matters to take on the mitigated site and on the other patients side. so what often has to be the last thing is that we actually as long as these policy is involved as well, everyone does that is responsive in society. and by what means is doctors governments to account and what we're doing would be helpful. so anything that can help us to get to where we need to go, i think, is very welcome. all right, well we have run out of time, so we're going to have to leave the conversation there. thanks them so much to our guest catherine camper and as far as how fun and thank you to for watching, you can see the program again any time by visiting our website. i'll just share
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