Australian court finds government has duty to protect young people from climate crisis
By Adam Morton
The Guardian
May 27, 2021
Eight teenagers, along with 86-year-old nun, launched case to prevent the approval of a massive coalmine
The federal court of Australia has found the environment minister, Sussan Ley, has a duty of care to protect young people from the climate crisis in a judgment hailed by lawyers and teenagers who brought the case as a world first.
Eight teenagers and an octogenarian nun had sought an injunction to prevent Ley approving a proposal by Whitehaven Coal to expand the Vickery coalmine in northern New South Wales, arguing the minister had a common law duty of care to protect younger people against future harm from climate change.
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In the latest on Wednesday, a court in the Hague ordered Royal Dutch Shell to cut its global carbon emissions by 45% by the end of 2030 compared with 2019 levels after finding the oil giant’s sustainability policy was insufficiently “concrete”.
The Anglo-Dutch company was told it had a duty of care and that the level of emission reductions of Shell and its suppliers and buyers should be brought into line with the Paris climate agreement. The case had been brought by Friends of the Earth and over 17,000 co-plaintiffs.
The International Energy Agency last week suggested there should be no new coal, oil or gas investments if the world was to keep open the possibility of meet the goals of the Paris agreement and reaching net zero global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.