European court decides safe climate is a human right: ex-UN rights chief [Video]

OXFORD, England –

Having a safe climate is becoming more of a human right globally with this week’s European court decision that says countries must better protect people from climate change, something warming-hit residents of the Global South long knew, said former Ireland President Mary Robinson.

Robinson, who was the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, praised Tuesday’s mixed court decision as precedent-setting and change-triggering. The European Court of Human Rights sided with Swiss senior women saying their government wasn’t doing enough to protect them from climate shocks, but dismissed similar complaints from Portuguese youth and France’s mayor on technical grounds.

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“Many countries in Europe, if not all, will be vulnerable to litigation along those lines, that their countries are not doing enough to protect the human rights,” Robinson said in a 30-minute interview with The Associated Press at the Skoll World Forum, a conference of ideas and entrepreneurship. “If countries do …