The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) gives its ruling today on the complaint filed by six young Portuguese people against 32 countries, an unprecedented case linked to the environment. The young Portuguese people who filed a complaint due to inaction in the fight against global warming believe that the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) will give them reason, but otherwise they promise to keep up the fight.
The young people said they were nervous about the decision scheduled for this morning, but added that they believed the ECtHR would prove them right.
The motivation for the complaint was the large fires of 2017, which young people say caused a lot of anxiety and which they consider to be the result of climate change.
André Oliveira, one of the young complainants, recalled last Wednesday that since then the climate situation has deteriorated, that the months and years have broken temperature records, and that Portugal is experiencing a tropical climate. “It scares me to think what will happen in the next few years,” he said.
Sofia Oliveira added to the heatwaves extreme meteorological phenomena such as a small tornado last week, on the outskirts of Lisbon, to also justify the anxiety that, she says, young people feel about the climate.
Despite being anxious about the decision, young people, like Catarina Mota, believe that reason is on their side and that, whatever the verdict, the action will serve to inspire people to act and pressure their governments to do more for defense of the environment.
“We hope that the ECtHR will prove us right, especially