Thunberg, activists push ahead with Sweden climate lawsuit

Thunberg, activists push ahead with Sweden climate lawsuit
by AFP Staff Writers
Stockholm (AFP) April 14, 2025

Climate activists including Greta Thunberg said Monday they plan to refile a lawsuit against the Swedish state for alleged climate inaction, two months after the Supreme Court threw out their case.

The Supreme Court said in February the complaint filed against the state -- brought by an individual, with 300 other people joining it as a class action lawsuit under the name Aurora -- was inadmissible, noting the "very high requirements for individuals to have the right to bring such a claim" against a state.

But it said that "an association that meets certain requirements may have the right to bring a climate lawsuit".

Aurora has therefore asked the Nacka district court where it first filed the lawsuit to reconsider it by switching the plaintiff to an association.

"If the court concludes that this is not possible, Aurora will sue the state again," it said in a statement.

"One way or another, Aurora is continuing to bring the issue of the Swedish state's legal obligations in the climate crisis to Swedish courts."

The first of its kind in the Scandinavian country, Aurora's lawsuit demanded that Sweden take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to within the limits of what is "technically and economically feasible".

Both the Swedish Climate Policy Council and the Environmental Protection Agency have for the past year warned that the Swedish right-wing government's policies will lead to an increase in emissions, and said the country was not on track to meet its climate goals and EU commitments.

Swedish Climate Minister Romina Pourmokhtari has said she is "not particularly worried" by the reports.

"If rich, high-emitting, resourceful powers like the Swedish state act immediately to fundamentally change our economic systems, we have a chance to get out of these planetary crises and build a sustainable and just world. We cannot let the state squander that chance," Aurora spokeswoman Ida Edling said.

In a landmark April 2024 decision, Europe's top rights court, the European Court of Human Rights, ruled that Switzerland was not doing enough to tackle climate change, the first country ever to be condemned by an international tribunal for not taking sufficient action to curb global warming.

In December 2019, the Dutch supreme court ordered the government to slash greenhouse gases by at least 25 percent by 2020 in another landmark case brought by an environmental group.