Three Portuguese environmental groups, Ultimo Recurso, Quercus and Sciaeno, filed a legal action in court Monday against the Portuguese government in response to the perceived lack of effort to enact legislation created to tackle climate change. According to the National Energy and Climate Plan 2030, Portugal was to decarbonize the economy, promote sustainable mobility and put energy sufficiency first, among many other goals, and reduce emissions between 45 and 55 percent.
These are goals, the three climate activist groups say, the government has made no moves to achieve. In the joint statement, the legal coordinator of Ultimo Recurso, Maria Paixão, decried the government’s actions as a “failure of democracy,” with other member Francisca Costa adding that, “every deadline missed… increases the likelihood of catastrophic global climate events.” In fact, the lawsuit comes after a year of unending heatwaves and forest fires in Portugal. Data published by the European Commission revealed that Portugal was the second-worst country affected by wildfires in 2022. Portugal also signed into effect the Climate Framework Law in 2021, which aims to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. Yet, nothing has been done to implement that goal despite the climate catastrophes experienced by the country in recent years.
This act represents the growing rise of climate-related lawsuits. According to the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), who published the Global Litigation Report in July 2023, there are currently 2,180 cases of climate litigation around the world, a sharp increase from the 1,550 in 2020 and the 884 in 2017. Court action, as stated in the report, is key to forcing governments to uphold their promises regarding climate change and does not allow them to escape accountability if they fail to do so.
There has been increasing success for climate activists in these lawsuits. Landmark cases include Milieudefensie v. Royal Dutch Shell, where Dutch climate activists brought legal action against Shell, which led to the Dutch courts demanding that Shell reduce its carbon emissions by 45 percent by 2030.
