Paris court rejects NGOs’ request to order the French state to take additional measures to repair ecological damage caused by carbon emissions

On 22 December 2023, the Administrative Court of Paris (“the Court”) issued another significant decision in what has been called the “case of the century” (L’Affaire du siècle). 

In its previous rulings of 3 February and 14 October 2021, the Court had held the French state responsible for failing to meet the national carbon targets set in the aftermath of the 2015 Paris Agreement and ordered the state to take all appropriate measures to repair the consequent ecological damage and prevent further damage by lowering emissions. 

The non-governmental organisations (“NGOs”) leading the case seized the Court once again in July 2023 and requested additional execution measures to be imposed on the French state and a 1.1-billion-euro penalty payment to be ordered, alleging that the state had not taken sufficient actions to comply with the Court’s injunctions. In its decision of December 2023, the Court rejected the NGOs’ request and held that the state’s actions were late but eventually sufficient to remedy the ecological damage caused by carbon emissions.

Similar climate change lawsuits have been brought against other European states. The latest case to date concerned Belgium, where the Brussels Court of Appeal in November 2023 held liable the Belgian Federal State and two of the country’s three Regions (Brussels-Capital and Flanders) for falling short of their climate commitments. The Court determined that, by not taking all necessary measures to prevent the impacts of climate change on the Belgian population, the governments breached the European Convention on Human Rights and their general duty of care under Belgian law. For more details on that decision, read our blog post here.

Previous rulings of February and October 2021

This case dates back to 2019, when four NGOs (backed up by more than 2.3 million people who had shown their support by signing a petition) sought an order from the Court recognising that the French state is responsible for its failure to fight climate change and, as consequence, condemning the state to pay a symbolic sum of one euro as compensation for the ecological damage and moral prejudice caused by the state’s failure and to take additional measures to limit global warming and abide by its (national and international) commitments.

On 3 February 2021, the Court held for the first time the French state responsible for failing to take sufficient action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The French state was said to be legally responsible for its failure to meet the national targets that had been set in the aftermath of the 2015 Paris Agreement. The Court recognised that the state did not comply with its first carbon budget (set for 2015-2018) and failed to carry out the adequate actions that it itself recognised as likely to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. 

The Court consequently ruled that the NGOs were entitled for compensation of the ecological damage (consisting of a constant increase in the Earth’s average global temperature due to greenhouse gas emissions, which causes a modification of the atmosphere and its ecological functions and leads to severe climate phenomena) and of their moral prejudice (since the state’s inaction “undermined the collective interests defended by each of the applicant associations”). 

The French state was ordered to pay the symbolic sum of one euro to each of the four NGOs for their moral prejudice. The Court however declined to issue compensatory damages for the ecological harm (since priority is given to compensation in kind under French law), ordered a further investigation and set a further deadline for the parties to exchange briefs, before deciding whether the French state should be ordered to take additional measures to combat global warming.

More information on the decision of 3 February 2021 is available in our previous post here.

On 14 October 2021, the Court instructed for the first time the French state to take all appropriate measures to repair the ecological damage and prevent further damage by 31 December 2022 at the latest, and determined the ecological damage to be equal to the uncompensated share of greenhouse gas emissions under the first carbon budget set for 2015-2018. 

The Court first stressed that the case was limited to the question of the ecological damage caused by the greenhouse gas emissions exceeding the first carbon budget set for 2015-2018 (and the compensation therefor) and declined to rule (as requested by the NGOs) on the sufficiency of all the measures likely to help achieving the objective of reducing greenhouse gases by 40% by 2030 compared to their 1990 level. 

For calculating the ecological damage, the Court noted that the cap set for 2015-2018 had been exceeded by 62 million tonnes of “carbon dioxide equivalent” (i.e. Mt CO2eq) but that, since the damage was assessed as at the date of the judgment, the substantial reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 (although mainly linked to the Covid-19 health crisis) must also be taken into account. The Court eventually evaluated the damage to be repaired to be equal to 15 Mt CO2eq.

The Court consequently ordered the French Prime Minister and the relevant ministers to take all appropriate sectoral measures to compensate for the damage, but considered that the determination of these measures felt out of the Court’s power and were to be freely decided by the government. 

NGOs’ request for additional enforcement measures rejected by the Court 

In June 2023, the Court was requested to enforce its decision of 14 October 2021 by the NGOs, who alleged that the French state had not taken sufficient action to comply with the 14 October 2021 decision. The applicants also requested a 1.1-billion-euro penalty payment to be imposed on the state for the alleged failings, as well as 122.5-million-euro penalty payment for each additional semester of delay in complying with the Court’s injunctions.  

In a decision of 22 December 2023, the Court denied the NGOs’ request and explained that the French state had adopted or implemented measures capable of remedying the ecological damage. 

The Court first refused to review the amount of ecological harm set out in its ruling of 14 October 2021 by taking into account data previously unknown, since its previous decision is now final. Additionally, the Court ruled that the drop in carbon emissions recorded in 2020 and 2021 must be taken into account in assessing whether the French state has remedied the ecological damage, even if such drop was significantly influenced by external circumstances such as the Covid-19 health crisis and the war in Ukraine.

In view of the data available for 2021 and 2022, the Court explained that the compensation for the ecological damage could not be considered complete as at the end of 2022, since part of the damage still had to be compensated (equal to 3 or 5 Mt CO2eq). However, the Court did not consider necessary to order additional enforcement measures and to impose the penalty payment on the state, since excess emissions were offset by a drop in the first quarter of 2023 (- 4.2%, i.e. 5 Mt CO2eq, compared with 2022). The Court thus ruled that the French state’s actions were late but eventually sufficient to remedy the ecological damage caused by carbon emissions. 

The NGOs announced that they will appeal the Court’s decision.