Case of the century, act… To tell the truth, we have stopped counting as this legal action and the mobilization of public opinion that preceded it were punctuated by key moments. On March 13, 2019, Notre Affaire à tous, Greenpeace France, the Nicolas Hulot Foundation and Oxfam France filed a lawsuit against the French state, for its climate inaction. On February 13, the Paris administrative court rendered its judgment and found the state “responsible” for failures in the fight against global warming.
A “historic victory”, proclaimed the four requesting NGOs. And who brought down the curtain on the Affair of the Century? Far from there. The legal action is still ongoing and passes an important stage, this Thursday afternoon from 2 p.m., with a new hearing of the public rapporteur, the magistrate chosen to analyze the dispute. Cécilia Rinaudo, general manager of Notre Affaire à tous, explains to 20 minutes challenges.
Why did the Affair of the Century not end with the administrative tribunal’s decision on February 3?
During this first judgment, the administrative court had declared illegal the non-respect by the French State of its climate commitments, after having exceeded the carbon budgets that it had set between 2015 and 2018. It also recognized the State as responsible for an ecological damage caused by its climate inaction. It then remained to address the repair of this ecological damage.
Still on February 3, the Paris Administrative Court reopened the investigation and ordered a stay of proceedings for the time to determine the measures that will be ordered to the State to answer this question. We arrive at the end of this stage. This afternoon, the public rapporteur will give her recommendations to the tribunal, which should render its decision within two to three weeks after this hearing.
Of these two decisions, that of February 3 and that expected in a few weeks, which is the most crucial?
Both are crucial. By launching this legal action, we wanted France’s climate inaction to be recognized as illegal and, as such, the State to be held responsible for ecological damage. We got it on February 3 and it is already a historic decision. This concept of ecological damage previously only existed in private law, it had never been recognized in administrative law. But this can only be a first step.
By launching the Affair of the Century, the aim of our four associations was to force the State to act. This is what is at stake in this next decision which could also be historic. If the judges condemn the state to act, it would be the first time that a large country has been condemned to repair the damage caused by its climate inaction.
Are we mainly going to talk about financial repairs this afternoon?
No, this question will come later. The court had said in its judgment in February: the ecological damage for which it recognized the State responsible needs to be repaired as much as possible in kind. It is moreover for this purpose, because determining these reparations in kind is a complex thing, that he reopened the investigation. Our wish is for the public rapporteur to recommend that the administrative court compel the State to take new concrete measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and which even go beyond the objectives that France has set for itself for 2030. We have already listed a number of them among our four NGOs. For example, we would like the State to be condemned to immediately reduce emissions from the transport sector by 6%, by massively increasing the modal share of non-road and non-air transport, to accelerate the renovation of housing (both in quantity and ‘in quality), to drastically increase the share of usable agricultural area cultivated organically …
On July 1, the Council of State (the highest French administrative court) has already ordered the State to strengthen its climate policy …
This decision was rendered in the Grande-Synthe Affair. [action en justice intentée, fin 2018, par cette ville du Nord contre l’Etat devant le Conseil d’Etat]. The two cases are close, the climate inaction of the State being each time at the heart of the debates. But the angle of attack is not quite the same. That of Grande-Synthe is the refusal of the State to take additional measures to respect the objectives resulting from the Paris agreement [ses objectifs 2030 notamment]. That of the Affair of the Century relates to the climate inaction of the State more broadly, with the specificity of raising the question of ecological damage attributable to the State.
This July 1 decision disappointed us. The Council of State contented itself with asking the government to “take all useful measures allowing to bend the curve of greenhouse gas emissions” but without specifying them further. [en estimant que cela relevait de choix politiques]. While keeping in mind this principle of the separation of powers, we would have liked the Council of State to push the government to adopt more ambitious measures or to detail the penalty to which it would be exposed if it did not strengthen its climate policy. .
Our fear, this Thursday, is that the public rapporteur will focus her plea on the issue of ecological damage and abandon that of the 2030 objectives, considering that the Council of State has already answered it in early July. It would be a shame, because these two subjects are at the heart of our requests. Forcing France to revise its climate objectives upwards and to take concrete measures now to achieve them is one way of starting to repair the ecological damage for which it is responsible.
📢 D-day for #Thecentury Affair : this afternoon, the hearing opens to determine the actions that the State will have to implement in order to meet its climate commitments. To be continued from 2 p.m.! ⬇️ https://t.co/s7RoZYaZy1
– Greenpeace France (@greenpeacefr) September 30, 2021
Will the Case of the Century be definitively closed after this second decision?
We will come closer to the end, but no, the Affair of the Century will not be over yet. The State will have the possibility of appealing to the Administrative Court of Appeal, then to the Council of State *. And even if, as we hope, the administrative tribunal condemns the state to take additional climate measures, it will most likely give it an ultimatum to act. There will then be a new appointment before the court at the end of the set deadline to verify that the State has indeed implemented the ordered measures. Otherwise, the question of the penalty payment will arise, that is to say the financial penalty which the State will have to pay until it complies with the court decision. We are already asking the administrative court of Paris that this penalty be mentioned in the decision expected in a few weeks and that its amount be set at 78,537,500 euros per semester.
To arrive at this amount, we relied on the work of the Quinet commission, which defined the “tutelary” value of a tonne of CO2 equivalent. [le prix que doit lui fixer l’Etat au regard notamment de ses engagements dans la lutte contre le réchauffement climatique]. This is the first time that such a financial penalty has been requested for the climate. But these 78 million euros correspond only to 10% of the estimated social cost of the ecological damage caused by the climate inaction of the State.