Key Points
- The women argued their age and gender made them particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts.
- The group includes more than 2,500 members, all women aged over 64.
- The judge said the Swiss government had failed to comply with its own targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
The Swiss women’s association Senior Women for Climate Protection secured a historic win when Europe’s top rights court faulted Switzerland for not doing enough to tackle global warming.
This is what you need to know about the Swiss seniors who helped secure the European Court of Human Rights’ first-ever condemnation of a country for failing to take action against climate change.
Who are the KlimaSeniorinnen?
In August 2016 a small group of women above retirement age who had bonded over concerns about climate change created the association to demand stronger action towards reaching the goals set by the 2015 Paris Agreement.
That agreement set targets for governments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, with the aim of preferably limiting warming to below global temperature rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
Today, the association says it counts more than 2,500 members — all women over the age of 64 who live in Switzerland.
Their average age is 73, it said.
“Elderly women are extremely vulnerable to the effects of heat,” the association said, explaining its membership criteria.
What did the court find?
The organisation has been arguing for climate protection to be recognised as a human right, pointing out that the increasingly frequent and intense heatwaves it is causing “pose a real and serious risk to our lives and physical and mental health”.
But the lawsuits it brought in Switzerland were all thrown out.
After failing to get a hearing before Switzerland’s Supreme Court, KlimaSeniorinnen filed an appeal in 2020 with the European Court of Human Rights.
That court finally issued its verdict on Tuesday, finding that the Swiss state had violated Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the “right to respect for private and family life”.
What does the ruling mean?
The verdict, which cannot be appealed, could compel the Swiss federal government to take greater action on reducing emissions, including revising its 2030 emissions reductions targets to get in line with the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to 1.5C.
Greenpeace and KlimaSeniorinnen now plan to take their case to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, with hearings expected to begin early next year.
‘I love that we are not in a rocking chair knitting’
Prior to the court proceeding, one of the group members, Elisabeth Stern told SBS News that the women have been activists for a long time.
“If you think that these are just women who have now grown old and now complain about it being too hot, no,” she said.
“We have been activists all our lives.”
“These women are just great to work with because they’re wide awake and they still have a commitment, and I love that we are not in a rocking chair knitting.”
The lawyer of the Swiss association, Cordelia Bahr, said the court had “established that climate protection was a human right”.
“It’s a huge victory for us and a legal precedent for all the states of the Council of Europe,” she said.
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg (left) with Senior Women for Climate member Rosmarie Wydler-Walti. Source: AAP / Jean-Francois Badias/AP
Greenpeace support
Senior Women for Climate Protection has since the start enjoyed strong support from the Swiss chapter of Greenpeace, which among other things has stood as guarantor for its years of legal fees.
Since its creation in 2016, the association has raked up more than $135,000 in expenses, according to its website.
