Essay by Eric Worrall
Weak Swiss Government climate policies were found to violate the rights of older Swiss women by increasing their risk of dying in heatwaves.
Human rights violated by inaction on climate, ECHR rules in landmark case
Court finds in favour of group of older Swiss women who claimed weak policies put them at greater risk of death from heatwaves
Ajit Niranjan Tue 9 Apr 2024 20.29 AEST
Weak government climate policies violate fundamental human rights, the European court of human rights has ruled.
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The court’s top bench ruled that Switzerland had violated rights of a group of older Swiss women to family life, but threw out a French mayor’s case against France and that of a group of young Portuguese people against 32 European countries.
“It feels like a mixed result because two of the cases were inadmissible,” said Corina Heri, a law researcher at the University of Zürich. “But actually it’s a huge success.”
The court, which calls itself “the conscience of Europe”, found that Switzerland had failed to comply with its duties to stop climate change. It also set out a path for organisations to bring further cases on behalf of applicants.
The Swiss verdict opens up all 46 members of the Council of Europe to similar cases in national courts that they are likely to lose.
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The KlimaSeniorinnen, a group of 2,400 older Swiss women, told the court that several of their rights were being violated. Because older women are more likely to die in heatwaves – which have become hotter and more common because of fossil fuels – they argued that Switzerland do its share to stop the planet heating by the Paris agreement target of 1.5C (2.7F) above preindustrial levels.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/09/human-rights-violated-inaction-climate-echr-rules-landmark-case
Switzerland, which is not a member of the European Union, voluntarily submits to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights. The EHCR in my opinion has over the years proven itself to be one of the most anti-democratic European institutions, frequently overruling the policies of elected officials.
Switzerland, with an average altitude of 1350m (4429ft) and latitude 46° North has warm summers and cold winters, but it’s not exactly a hot country. They do get occasional heatwaves. I visited Switzerland a long time ago in April, I remember I had to open my overcoat after climbing around the foothills of Grindelwalde for half a day, but the weather wasn’t exactly boiling hot.
My health advice to the KlimaSeniorinnen, if it appears to be a hot sunny summer day, you could reduce your reduce your risk of heatstroke by leaving your thermal layers at home.
CSIRO survey finds most Australians want moderately paced energy transition and are unwilling to pay more – ABC News
So see how simple it is doomsters? It’s all cheap from Gaia so naturally the true believers with their experts have to get on with that at no cost or inconvenience to the masses. Same deal everywhere and it’s not a problem unless you’ve been lying to them.
By the nature of their workload, Judges often have to take at face value the opinion of “experts”. Sometimes, they would make better decisions if they accessed the raw data behind the specialists’ beliefs, but then we would have Judges taking over the work of Scientists, not optimum.
In this particular matter. the claim is reported that “Because older women are more likely to die in heatwaves – which have become hotter and more common ….”
There seems to be an expert opinion that because the globe has seen an increase in temperatures, heatwaves must get hotter also. This is questionable. There is evidence like that presented by Rick Will here on WUWT, that ocean temperatures have an upper barrier of 30 degrees C. The upper surface sea temperature stays at 30 C no matter what the global T does. I am not claiming that a similar barrier exists over land, where different mechanisms apply, but I am claiming that the available observations do indeed support a barrier concept for heatwaves over land.
I have studied heatwaves in Australia for many years now. Recently, I concentrated on 8 major cities, that together house about 70% of our Australian population. This is where more hospitals would be needed if heatwaves became hotter. But they have not.
Here is but one example, from Melbourne, population 5 million, where I live. I have used official daily BOM data for Tmax. A 3-day heatwave is taken as the highest average over all 3 consecutive days of Tmax. Here is the chart since 1856, of a sample of the hottest 3-day heatwaves each year for Melbourne.
It is clear that these 3-day heatwaves are getting cooler, by a small amount, as time passes.
People worried by this Swiss Court judgement should do more than handwringing. Get the raw data from your country, make similar heatwave graphs and argue with data. It sure beats expert opinion.
I have been giving this useful advice to all and sundry for 15 years now. The most common response is here:
Geoff S
Correction, Strasbourg Court, deciding what happens in Switzerland. Apologies. Geoff S
Quote “Court finds in favour of group of older Swiss women who claimed weak policies put them at greater risk of death from heatwaves”
Is there any statistical evidence that women in Switzerland have died from heatwaves or at what level of excessive heat they are likely to be at risk of death? I expect Swiss authorities have data regarding deaths arising from excess cold.
It took me all of three minutes to find the “Share of CO2 global emissions” on the Our World in Data website (ourworldindata.org co2-emissions) where I selected China, US, Ireland and Switzerland. Switzerland was at the botton, almost a straight line along the x-axis, only 0.1%.
These women are ignorant and foolish. They have been conned by the climate alarmists. Where is there any evidence that even a single woman in Switzerland has died because of a “heatwave” in their country? I have lived in different climate zones including one where the summer temperatures regularly rose to the mid thirties (95⁰F) and another often over forty (104⁰F). I cannot remember an elderly person ever dying from the heat.
There is also not a single climate zone where we are able to engineer the perfect climate – which we cannot even define. Even if Switzerland were able to miraculously reduce their CO2 emissions to zero, it would have no effect whatsoever on either the total emissions or make any difference to the climate in that country. These women fail to see that the huge sums of money to reach an unachievable goal will steal most of the funding for social welfare, healthcare, education and other essential services – leading to extreme poverty and many deaths.
There is a simple and cost effective solution to coping with various weather conditions. It is summed up in the word “adapting“. We are already doing it by building better houses, by more efficient use of fossil fuels, by reducing pollution, by better water management, by improving agricultural methods and more.
Exactly!
Thank goodness for Brexit. No one in their right mind would now ever want to join the EU
Regardless of where you are in the climate follies, this court room clown show should terrify everyone. It is another example of the disturbing trend of convictions based on the result of future events.
Hate crimes, thought crimes, speech crimes, and climate crimes have no place in civilized court rooms. It seems that popular narratives are being taken as evidence in star chambers. When did this become OK?
Switzerland, which is not a member of the European Union, voluntarily submits to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights.
Contrary to judicial myths and other conspiracy theories, the ECHR has nothing whatsoever to do with the European Union. The UK isn’t a member of the EU but, unfortunately, also abides by the decisions of the ECHR. In fact there are 46 countries which belong to the Council of Europe so there are 19 countries which “submit” to the jurisdiction of the ECHR without being members of the EU. Switzerland “submits” to the jurisdiction of the ECHR in exactly the same way as Germany, France, Italy, Spain and all the other members of the Council of Europe.
Well, if you’re worried about people dying from heatwaves then you need to produce more electricity for air conditioners.
The lawfare continues. Now the “principle” is established, the Nut Zero zealots will be using “Human Rights” to enforce climate action.