Climate Case Ireland Launches Website

international | environment | press release Tuesday May 08, 2018 17:04 by foie - Friends of Irish Environment

Press Release - Friends of the Irish Environment - 7th May 2018

At a meeting in Bonn during the UN climate talks, Climate Case Ireland is launching a website to seek support from members of the public. The website includes a one minute video explaining the legal challenge Friends of the Irish Environment has brought against the Irish Government’s failure to take the action needed to avert dangerous climate change

Sadhbh O’Neill, who travelled overland to Bonn for the meeting on behalf of FIE, will appear alongside the other plaintiffs, lawyers and campaigners representing four other climate cases across Europe – from Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Norway. The meeting will be livestreamed at 13.30 today Irish Time.

Climate Case Ireland’s website has facilities for supporters to sign on ‘IN MY NAME’, noting that ‘Adding your name will not make you a legal party to the case or create any kind of financial liability.’

Serge de Gheldere, of the NGO Klimaatzaak in Belgium who is also attending the meeting, pointed out that the Belgium CLIMATE CASE now has more than 35,000 co-plaintiffs, the biggest lawsuit in their legal history. More than 1,000 climate cases have been filed worldwide, according to a recent report by Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.

Ms O’Neill said that a legal momentum had been established in Ireland last year in a FIE Judicial Review when an Irish Court for the first time recognised a constitutional ‘right to an environment that is consistent with the human dignity and wellbeing of citizens at large’.

The climate case will next be before Ireland’s High Court for a procedural hearing on Tuesday 5th June. It is expected the case will be heard in full within the next year

Visit the website
https://www.climatecaseireland.ie/
Watch today’s meeting live at 13.30 Irish Time:
https://unfccc-sb48.cloud.streamworld.de/upcoming

FIE contacts and interviews: Sadhbh O’Neill +353 (0)87 2258599
Other FIE contacts: Daithí Ó hÉalaithe (English & Irish language) +353 (0)87 6178852
Tony Lowes +353 (0)27 74 771 / +353 (0)87 2176316