A court in the Netherlands has ordered the Dutch government to toughen its climate policies, a major ruling that could motivate environmental activists to pursue a similar legal strategy in other countries.
The Hague District Court ordered the government to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 25 percent from 1990 levels in the next five years. The government had previously committed to reducing emissions by 17 percent, but an environmental group, Urgenda, sued and demanded that the reductions be between 25 percent and 40 percent.
In deciding the case, the court extensively cited the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and other scientific bodies. The court stressed the threat of changes caused by greenhouse gases and the importance of preventing the large-scale disruptions that climate experts predict will occur if long-term temperatures rise by more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit over the level of pre-industrial times.
The decision, translated into English by the government, concluded that “the possibility of damages for those whose interests Urgenda represents, including current and future generations of Dutch nationals, is so great and concrete that given its duty of care, the state must make an adequate contribution, greater than its current contribution, to prevent hazardous climate change.”
The decision was also based in part on the law of human rights; the court stated that “human rights law and environmental law are mutually reinforcing.”
The state, the court said, has a “duty of care” that applies to the “livability of the country and the protection and improvement of the living environment.”
The effects of Wednesday’s decision could ripple far beyond the Netherlands, said Michael B. Gerrard, the director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School. “I think this will encourage lawyers in several other countries to see if they have opportunities in their domestic courts to pursue similar litigation,” he said.
In the United States, climate policy has already been shaped, in part, by the courts, he said. In the 2007 case, Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, the Supreme Court supported Massachusetts’ argument that the Clean Air Act empowered the government to regulate greenhouse gases.
The new case is distinctive because it finds an independent basis for government obligation to deal with environmental issues, Mr. Gerrard said. “The U.S. case was based on a statute,” he added. “This wasn’t.”
The group Urgenda’s name is a combination of “urgent agenda.” Marjan Minnesma, the director of the group, said climate change threatened to bring about “an unlivable world” with drought, food shortages, refugee crises and war.
When she and two lawyers teamed up to file the lawsuit with 900 co-plaintiffs, “Everybody in the legal scene said, ‘This will never happen — this is just a P.R. stunt,’ ” she said. “This is not a P.R. stunt.”
The government can appeal the decision of the court. In a statement, the Dutch minister for the environment, Wilma Mansveld, did not say whether the government would appeal.
“We will now examine what this ruling means for the Dutch state,” she said, and added, “We and Urgenda share the same goal. We just hold different opinions regarding the manner in which to attain this goal.”
Preventing climate change, she added, is the work of many nations, not just the Netherlands.
The court ordered the government to pay Urgenda’s costs. Ms. Minnesma said the group had spent about 300,000 euros, or about $336,000, on the case.
Ms. Minnesma of Urgenda said the structure of the Dutch courts was such that “now that we have a ‘yes,’ it’s very difficult in the next phase to say ‘no.’ ”
She also questioned whether the government would be wise to appeal. “That’s morally not a very strong standpoint.”