Greta Thunberg Leads Hundreds of Youths in Suing Swedish State for 'Illegal' Climate Policy

Researchers have warned that the Swedish and North European climate movement has become “more radical and confrontational” because activists are frustrated by what they see as the authorities’ inaction. They have disrupted public events, blocked roads, glued themselves to runways on airports and blockaded plants and industrial facilities.

Roughly 600 Swedish young people are suing the Swedish state over climate policies which they consider to be deficient.

The lawsuit has been in the making for two years and will be submitted through the organization Aurora with a demonstration in Stockholm on Friday, 25 November. Its signatories include children as young as seven, but also climate celebrities such as Greta Thunberg, who is credited with a key role in the initiative.

“The Swedish state doesn’t treat the climate crisis as a crisis. They have set climate targets that exclude the majority of our emissions and which are also far from ambitious enough for Sweden to do its fair share of the global emission reductions. And the inadequate climate targets are not even met,” the youth organization claimed on its website.

Aurora argued that the right to life, health and development which the European Convention on Human Rights guarantees to children has been jeopardized, and holds the Swedish state responsible for the lack of climate work.

The organization pointed out that Sweden’s emissions have been greater since 2019 than their fair share allows, and it calls for excess to be balanced by lower emissions in future years. They demand the assurance that reduced emissions in one category are not achieved by greater emissions in other categories - for example, through the increased combustion of biofuels or moving production abroad.

“If the state's climate measures fail now, they threaten our human rights in the future. It is a legal obligation for which the state can be legally held accountable. That's why we're suing them,” Ida Edling, a law student and one of the activists behind the action, told Swedish media.

Similar lawsuits have already been filed in other European countries. In Germany and the Netherlands, the activists won in court against the government, which forced the representatives of both countries to tighten their climate targets.

Over the past year, Swedish climate activists have disrupted public events, blocked roads, glued themselves to runways at airports and blockaded plants and industrial facilities. Researchers have stressed that from a Swedish and Northern European perspective the climate movement has become “more radical and confrontational”, citing underlying dissatisfaction and frustration with the lack of progress on both domestic and international climate action.

In 2021, climate activist Greta Thunberg, who rose to fame through solitary protests in front of the Swedish parliament and became something of a cult figure, visited the COP26 Glasgow summit, but described it as a load of “blah, blah, blah”. This year, she boycotted the COP27 Sharm el-Sheikh summit altogether, saying it was “greenwashing”.