"A Dutch court on Wednesday ruled that the Netherlands was not doing enough to protect residents of the island of Bonaire from climate change and its consequences. The court in The Hague said the Dutch government was treating Bonaire's residents differently from those living in the European part of the Netherlands without a valid justification. What did the Dutch court say about Bonaire?"
"In its ruling, the court said the impacts of climate change pose specific risks to Bonaire, a low-lying Caribbean island that is particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels, extreme weather, and environmental degradation. It said the Dutch government was failing in its duty to safeguard the island's population and ruled that the Dutch state discriminated against the island's 20,000 inhabitants by not taking "timely and appropriate measures.""
""The island already suffers from flooding due to tropical storms and extreme rainfall, and according to several researchers, this will worsen in the coming years. Even conservative forecasts predict that parts of the island will be underwater by 2050, so in 25 years," Judge Jerzy Luiten told a packed courtroom. The judges said the unequal level of protection amounted to unjustified discrimination within the Kingdom of the Netherlands."
The court ruled that climate change poses specific and serious risks to Bonaire, a low-lying Caribbean island vulnerable to sea level rise, extreme weather, and environmental degradation. The Dutch government was found to be failing in its duty to safeguard the island’s roughly 20,000 inhabitants by not taking timely and appropriate measures, creating unequal protection compared with the European Netherlands. Judges cited current flooding from storms and forecasts that parts of the island could be underwater by 2050. The government argued existing mitigation efforts and administrative responsibility, but the court found measures legally insufficient, including omissions on transport emissions and binding targets.
Read at www.dw.com
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