Court to rule on first climate lawsuit against Italian state

ROME:

An Italian court is to rule on the country's first climate lawsuit against the state, with claimants hoping Rome will be ordered to slash greenhouse-gas emissions sharply.

The case, known as "Giudizio Universale" (Last Judgment), was launched in June 2021 by environmental group A Sud and more than 200 other associations and individuals.

They accuse the state of violating fundamental rights by failing to take sufficient action to meet the goals laid out in the landmark 2015 Paris agreement to reduce carbon emissions.

"I joined the trial because I have a mission to inform society about the risks we face due to climate change," climatologist Luca Mercalli, one of the claimants, told AFP.

A win would put pressure on "institutions to be much faster and more concrete in addressing the climate crisis", said Mercalli, who moved to the mountains in northern Italy to escape increasingly frequent heatwaves on the plains.

Scientists have long warned that humanity's burning of fossil fuels is warming the world with disastrous consequences for the environment.

In what promised to be a historic case for Italy -- a Mediterranean country exposed to multiple climate calamities -- the claimants initially asked a court to find the state responsible for contributing to the crisis, and to order it to cut emissions by 92 percent compared with 1990 levels by 2030.