Climate change, more evidence needed to prove Italy's non-compliance

Barred road forclimate action against Italy. At least for now. In two decisions filed on 7 May and made public on the 30th, the European Court of Human Rights declared inadmissible two separate appeals that centred on the adverse effects on the claimants caused by Italy's and other states' failure to comply with the 1992 Climate Convention and the 2015 Paris Agreement.

In one case (De Conto v. Italy and 32 other States, Application No. 14620/21), the applicant recalled the damage caused by climate change, the effects of which had also been visible with the storm Vaia that had struck several Italian regions in 2018. In her view, alongside the damage caused to infrastructure and homes, there had been consequences due to the stress caused by natural disasters, which increased in connection with the prospect of living in an increasingly warmer climate for the rest of one's life. The applicant also provided medical reports and thus invoked a violation of Article 2 of the European Convention guaranteeing the right to life, Article 8 on the right to respect for private and family life, Article 13 on the right to an effective remedy, and Article 14 on the prohibition of discrimination.

The Court recognised that it was incumbent on Italy to take measures to protect the applicant's conventional rights, while excluding it from ruling on the action concerning the other States that had no jurisdiction outside its territory. Thus, the Court, with regard to the action against the other States, declared the action inadmissible.

With regard to the merits of the action against Italy, the Court ruled that, in the case of climate actions, in order to be able to invoke the violation of a conventional norm, it is necessary to demonstrate the high intensity of the alleged victim's exposure to the adverse effects of climate change and the pressing need to ensure the individual's protection, with the addition that the threshold for identifying the existence of these two criteria is particularly high. On the impact of climate change on mental health, the Court found that the medical certificates submitted did not provide any indication of the link between health status and exposure to the adverse effects of climate change. For example, it was not shown that the state of anxiety was related to the plaintiff's concerns about climate change or that she was personally exposed to such negative effects. Thus, no evidence was provided that there was a pressing need toensure individual protection from the harm climate change would have on the enjoyment of human rights.

Consequently, the European Court declared the application inadmissible ratione personae with regard to Article 8, not excluding, however, that it could be upheld in the presence of adequate and suitable evidence that the two required parameters for the presentation of the applications had been met.