Taking 32 European governments to court for climate inaction

Supporting GLAN to bring a climate case to the European Court of Human Rights

After witnessing devastating forest fires and experiencing ever-worsening heatwaves, six Portuguese young people, aged 11 to 24, decided to act. They brought a case against 32 countries with the European Court of Human Rights for their climate inaction. 

Results and impact:

Taking 32 European governments to court

Challenge – preventing human right violations through climate inaction

European Governments have not taken the climate action they have committed to when they signed the Paris Agreement. If they continue this way, it is very likely that we will face the outcomes of several climate catastrophes. This is a violation of our human rights.

To ensure governments respect their commitments, six young people from Portugal filed a case against 32 European governments to the European Court of Human Rights.

Solution – generating international support for litigation applicants

Greenhouse partnered with the young people and their lawyers to generate international support for the applicants. Our communications strategy included building clear messaging for each of the possible outcome of the cases, media engagement (setting up press conferences and interviews with the applicants and legal team), running their social media channels with compelling content to build momentum, and undertaking stakeholder engagement.

Results – securing news articles, managing press relations and highlighting story through social channels

We generated over 3,000 news articles including BBC News, BBC World Service, The Guardian, CNN, Deutsche Welle, NHK and more. We maintained a constant stream of communication through press conferences, media materials, prior briefings and managed a WhatsApp broadcast channel on the day of the hearing 130+ journalists to ensure the narrative was controlled. On social media, the hashtags we introduced, #Youth4ClimateJustice and #WeAreWatching, combined for a total of 754 posts over the three-week period.

Impact – helping create a new avenue for litigation through climate win

The court has found 2/3 of cases, including our case, inadmissible. However, they have ruled the KlimaSeniorinnen v Switzerland as a win for the applicants. No other case has been able to come so far before, therefore this was a win for all three cases. These cases have created a new avenue for climate litigation and has encouraged other cases to be submitted with national courts. 

Media coverage

Our media coverage encompassed 3,300 articles across over 100 countries – here are some of the largest publications in which the story was featured:

Top stories included..

BBC: Six young people take 32 countries to court

Reuters: ‘Unprecedented’ climate trial unfolds at rights court

Guardian: Girl, 11, among six young people taking on 32 nations in historic climate case

What we did

Social assets

As part of the toolkit and to be shared on the Y4CJ owned channels, Greenhouse created additional assets to garner awareness for the ruling on April 9th and to share key messages afterwards.

Digital toolkit

Greenhouse developed the Youth4ClimateJustice Digital Communications Toolkit to support stakeholders, encourage engagement and deliver unified messaging.​

The toolkit included important information such as:

• – 12x Background and key facts cards.
• – 36x Image assets to use, optimised for both Twitter and Instagram.
• – 20x Articles to share.

Key engagements

1. – Created a drumbeat of social media content in the two-week notice before the ruling.
2. – Devised a social media strategy.
3. – Carried out social media activity on the day of the verdict hearing.
4. – Curated an Instagram story feed, allowing our audience to follow along with events as they happened.
5. – Engaged with and supported other accounts across social media, showing a united front for climate litigation and coming together in support for the KlimaSeniorinnen.

What our clients say

“The hearing in Strasbourg in September was a real high-point for us in GLAN and it’s been a real pleasure working with everyone in Greenhouse in the lead-up to the hearing and since then. Huge thanks for all the work in helping to secure the amount of coverage we ended up getting.”

Gerry Liston – Senior Lawyer, Global Legal Action Network