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.
The Turów brown coal (lignite) mine near Poland’s border with Germany and the Czech Republic is filling the atmosphere with dangerous toxins.
The threatened loss of drinking water for tens of thousands of people in the Czech Republic’s Liberec region has earned the notice of Politico, a Brussels-based news site. Politico reported on the plans for the expansion of the Turów brown coal mine in Poland, near the Czech/German/Polish border.
Thirty thousand people in the Czech Republic’s Liberec region face a loss of access to drinking water due to the planned expansion of the Turów coal mine. This mine is planned to newly stretch outwards to just 150 meters from the Czech border and downwards to a depth below the bottom of the Baltic. The resulting drainage of Czech underground water is not just a threat to citizens; the drying out of the area would destroy entire local ecosystems and cause significant agricultural damage. A further increase to dust and noise levels is a threat as well. Furthermore, the end date for mining is to be delayed from 2020 out to 2044.
