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Environmental activists have filed a lawsuit at an Oslo court challenging Norway’s proposal to carry out seabed mineral exploration, saying that authorities have not done sufficient impact assessment of the mining.
The development has come after Norway’s parliament in January sanctioned a plan to “open a vast ocean area larger than Britain for seabed mineral exploration after a government-commissioned study concluded that its impact would be minimal,” according to a Reuters report.
The lawsuit is the latest addition to the long list of climate-related cases being filed across the world. In recent years, more and more people have been turning to the courts to sue governments and companies for either not taking adequate steps to mitigate the effects of climate change or taking decisions that severely impact the environment.
Here is a look at what climate litigation is, and how it has been rising across the world.
Deep-sea mining involves removing mineral deposits and metals from the ocean’s seabed. There are three types of such mining: taking deposit-rich polymetallic nodules off the ocean floor, mining massive seafloor sulphide deposits and stripping cobalt crusts from rock.
These nodules, deposits and crusts contain materials, such as nickel, rare earth, cobalt and more, that are needed for batteries and other materials used in tapping renewable energy and also for everyday technology like cellphones and computers.
However, there are many environmental concerns regarding deep sea mining as conservationists worry that it can damage ecosystems. Damage from mining can include noise, vibration and light pollution, as well as possible leaks and spills of fuels and other chemicals used in the mining process.
Sediment plumes from some mining processes are also a concern. Once valuable materials are extracted, slurry sediment plumes are sometimes pumped back into the sea. That can harm filter-feeding species like corals and sponges and could smother or otherwise interfere with some creatures.
Climate litigation is a form of legal action that is being used to hold countries and companies accountable for their climate mitigation efforts and historical contributions to climate change.
As of December 2022, there have been 2,180 climate-related cases filed in 65 jurisdictions, including international and regional courts, tribunals, quasi-judicial bodies, or other adjudicatory bodies across the world, according to the Global Climate Litigation Report: 2023 Status Review. This is a steady increase from 884 cases in 2017 and 1,550 cases in 2020.
“Children and youth, women’s groups, local communities, and Indigenous Peoples, among others, are taking a prominent role in bringing these cases and driving climate change governance reform in more and more countries around the world,” the report said.
Most recently, in April this year, Europe’s highest human rights court sided with a group of 2,000 Swiss women — all over the age of 64 — who had sued their government for violating their human rights by failing to do enough to combat the adverse effects of climate change.
In August 2023, young plaintiffs of Montana, US, won a case against their state government in which the latter was found guilty of violating the plaintiffs’ constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment. The court said Montana’s neglect of climate change while approving fossil fuel projects was unconstitutional.
Similar cases have been filed in India also. In 2017, a 9-year-old girl from Uttarakhand approached the National Green Tribunal of India, arguing that the Public Trust Doctrine, India’s commitments under the Paris Agreement, and India’s existing environmental laws and climate-related policies oblige greater action to mitigate climate change. Her petition, however, was later rejected.
(With inputs from Reuters and Associated Press)
