The NGOs requested an economic sanction of 1.1 billion euros against the French State, but the courts ruled against it this Friday. Several environmental defense associations such as Notre Affaire à Tous, Greenpeace, Oxfam, united under the motto 'The case of the century', had attacked the State for failing to comply with its commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
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The administrative court of Paris dismissed this Friday the case of the century promoted by NGOs, which brought together Notre Affaire à Tous, Greenpeace and Oxfam, who requested an economic sanction of 1.1 billion euros against the French State, which they accuse of not acting enough to fight global warming.
In its ruling, the court considers that the “reparation of the ecological damage was late but is now complete”, judging that “the State, in accordance with the request that had been addressed to it, had adopted or implemented measures to repair the damage in question ”.
According to the public rapporteur who, during the hearing on December 8, stated that the latest data regarding national CO emissions2that is, a drop of 4.3% for the first half of 2023 and 2.7% in 2022, “allowed us to consider that the damage had been fully repaired.”
The NGOs announced in a press release that they “reserve the right to appeal” the sentence that has just been handed down.
In February 2021, the Paris administrative court ruled in its favor, declaring the state responsible for failing to meet its commitments and for the “ecological damage” that results from them. Then, in October of the same year, the Justice ordered that the 15 million tons of CO2 issued above France's targets in 2015-2018 were to be offset “no later than December 31, 2022.”
The NGOs considered that this sentence had not been executed and this time they demanded economic sanctions within the framework of a new procedure initiated in June 2023. The fine, of 1.1 billion euros, corresponded to nine semesters of delay already accumulated, according to calculations by NGOs, based on the Quinet method, name of the author of a report on “the value of climate action” published a few years ago.
The ruling of the administrative court recognizes that the deadline of December 22, 2022 was not respected, “setting the part of the damage that remains to be repaired at 3 or 5 million tons of CO2 equivalent, according to the hypotheses that are made”.
But it estimates that the fall in emissions in the first quarter of 2023, -4.2%, that is, 5 million tons of CO2, made it possible to compensate for this deficit. Therefore the judges concluded that “there is no reason to issue additional coercive measures.”
The State would have compensated the damage “without any real intention to do so”
The other argument of the associations was that the drop in greenhouse gas emissions observed in France both for the year 2022, -2.7%, and for the first half of 2023, -4.3%, was linked to “purely cyclical” and external factors, such as a mild winter last year or the energy crisis linked to the war in Ukraine, and not necessarily to the implementation of state actions to combat climate change.
The court ruled that these elements certainly “could have influenced the reduction of CO emissions2“, but that “it was not necessary to neutralize the effects.”
“With this decision, the court accepts the idea that the State would have compensated the damage without any real intention to do so,” commented Jérémie Suissa, general delegate of Notre Affaire à Tous, and reiterated that “justice must be more ambitious in the face of the climate inaction of governments”.
French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne presented on May 23 a new action plan to reduce France's emissions. Between now and 2030, France aims to reduce its emissions by 50% compared to the 1990 level, in accordance with European commitments, which means reducing them twice as fast as what happens today.
The French State is still pending on another matter, that of Grande-Synthe, a northern commune threatened with submergence due to climate change. On May 10, the Council of State again called on France to strengthen its work on climate protection, giving the country a deadline of June 30, 2024 to reduce the national carbon footprint.
*Adapted from its original in French
With AFP
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