Post by bonnasuttadhar225588 on Feb 15, 2024 5:42:21 GMT
Historically, climate change litigation cases, which have largely involved damage claims and damages, have been dismissed or stalled. However, the recent ruling by the Rio court to strengthen climate action in Brazil could set an important precedent for national and international environmental justice, according to AIDA . The decision of the Supreme Court of Brazil is comparable to the Paris Agreement - which seeks to strengthen the global response to keep the planet's temperature below 2 °C and avoid the worst climate disasters - since it postulates a human rights treaty that requires the State to protect the environment for current and future generations. Fund to combat climate change is reactivated The measure orders the government to fully reactivate the Climate Fund , a national stimulus intended to support projects that mitigate climate change. Created in 2009, as part of the national climate policy plan , said instrument was inoperative in 2019, since then no annual plans had been prepared and no money had been disbursed to support projects that mitigate climate change. «Treaties on environmental law are a type of human rights treaties and, therefore, have supranational status. "Therefore, there is no legally valid option to simply skip to combat climate change." Supreme Court of Brazil.
According to Marcella Ribeiro, lawyer for the Inter-American Association for the Defense of the Environment (AIDA), the decision to strengthen climate action in Brazil created a privileged protection framework for climate mitigation and adaptation, by ensuring one of the fundamental pillars : the foundership. With this, says Ribeiro, "[it] was made clear that the Executive Branch, by restricting the resources that by law are Cyprus Email List allocated to climate action, is failing to comply with the international agreements and conventions on human rights to which Brazil is a party." The historic fight for climate policy in Brazil The ruling is the culmination of a lawsuit filed two years ago against the Brazilian federal government by four political parties: the Workers' Party, the Socialism and Freedom Party, the Brazilian Socialist Party and the Sustainability Network. In the ruling, supported by ten of the 11 presiding judges, Judge Luis Roberto Barroso stressed that it is important to stop the enormous increase in deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, a problem that has shown no signs of slowing down. And Brazil is the fifth largest carbon emitter in the world and deforestation is its largest source of emissions.
In this context, the Supreme Court recognized the climate fund as the main tool available to reduce emissions. Therefore, not using it was a violation “by omission” of the national constitution, which requires the State to protect the environment to safeguard the well-being of current and future generations. Likewise, the AIDA lawyer highlighted that the government's responsibility to strengthen climate action in Brazil can give way to courts and judges in other Latin American countries making the same recognition. Environmental litigation accelerates environmental responsibility The case of the Climate Fund in Brazil demonstrates that strategic climate litigation is an effective and necessary way to help governments and companies on the continent meet their climate commitments. In its most recent report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) highlighted that climate-related litigation is on the rise and, at some points, has influenced the outcomes and ambition of climate governance.