Laura Otýpková
Lawyer and Head of the Responsible Energy Team
An unprecedented decision was made at the Municipal Court in Prague in the historically first Czech climate litigation, for which Frank Bold Advokáti provided legal expertise.
According to the court, the state should now take the necessary measures to slow down climate change. In particular, it should take the necessary steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the fields of energy, transport and forestry. The state was given six months to comply. This is the first similar decision in the Czech Republic, but we have seen the same decision to be made already by courts in Germany, the Netherlands or Ireland.
"The court, like the courts of other European and world states, has assumed that international climate protection obligations directly imply the rights of individuals. He stated that the measures set out in the strategic documents of the Czech ministries are clearly not sufficient to achieve even the minimum emission reduction target by 2030 set by the European Union,” summed up the court's verdict our lawyer Pavel Černý.
In mid-December, the European Commission acknowledged a large part of the arguments put forward by the Czechia in an effort to prevent the expansion and continuation of illegal mining at the Turów mine in Poland, that endangers the sources of drinking water for thousands of people in the Liberec region and, according to new studies, has serious impacts on groundwater in Germany as well. Frank Bold's lawyers, who defend the interests of Czech citizens, have long been involved in the case.
The Frank Bold Society and the Neighbourhood Association Uhelná called on the Czech government today to be more consistent in its negotiations with Poland over mining at the Turów brown coal mine. According to both organisations, the government did not have enough information or time to prepare an agreement that would truly protect Czech interests. Moreover, the government has acted in a non-transparent manner by failing to inform the public in advance of the terms of the agreement being prepared, which should lead to the withdrawal of the action against Poland at the EU Court of Justice. The organisations have therefore drawn up a document with seven basic demands on which the Czech side should insist.
The European Commission recently introduced a draft of the revised EU ETS Directive which, among other things, proposes that 100 % of ETS revenues should be used for environmental measures. We welcome this idea but we’re also sceptical about how the ETS revenues are used in the Czech Republic. Therefore, we have prepared an analysis mapping the use of ETS revenues in Czech Republic and sent it to the European Commission as an input for the recent public consultation. The main conclusions are presented below.
