Last week a group of older women successfully challenged the Swiss government’s climate policies at the European court of human rights.

“It took me a while until the penny dropped that we’d actually won.”

Elisabeth Stern, 76, is a climate activist with the 2,400-strong campaign group KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz (Senior Women for Climate Protection Switzerland).
The group claimed that the Swiss government was not doing enough to reduce carbon emissions and that elderly women were more likely to die during heatwaves in a complaint before the European Court of Human Rights.

“We all know the climate is changing,” Stern tells the sources. “But the government has to do something to protect the people during those very, very hot days, right? And making sure that we don’t have more and more hot days like that. So every country has to make a contribution, which Switzerland is not doing.”

The team prevailed in the case last week. The government’s ineffective climate initiatives were found to have infringed fundamental human rights by the court.

This court decision is a big win and a steady progress in making and implementing the climate change policies. This will include creating and involving people in spreading awareness about the climate situation today and the essential measures to be adopted by the people everywhere. A strong  check and control over industrial pollution in air, water as well as other aspects that are rapidly damaging the natural resources. Changing to renewable energy resources with adoption of electric vehicles, minimising the use of plastic and planting maximum trees, can probably support to certain extent.