Kids Take Climate Battle to Court: A New Generation Fights for Their Future

On the 21st, a climate lawsuit questioning the constitutionality of the South Korean government’s response to climate change was held in the Grand Courtroom of the Constitutional Court in Jongno-gu, Seoul.

The person who attended this complicated trial as a witness was not an adult, but a child. Even on this day, children accompanied by their parents held a press conference in front of the Constitutional Court. Why did children come to the Constitutional Court?

The Constitutional Court conducted the second hearing on the constitutional confirmation of Article 42, Paragraph 1, Subparagraph 1 of the former Low Carbon Green Growth Basic Act, among others.

This case dubbed the Baby Climate Lawsuit, originated in 2022 when 62 children under the age of 5 filed a constitutional petition against the government, claiming that it violated the basic rights of citizens, such as the right to life, environmental rights, and equality rights.

The complaint alleges the government’s response to the climate crisis, including its basic plan for carbon neutrality for future generations, is insufficient.

According to the Meteorological Administration, they insisted it is too low a target that the government set the 2030 national greenhouse gas reduction target (NDC) at 40% compared to 2018 in the enforcement decree of the Carbon Neutrality Basic Act.

Even if this target is achieved, the amount of carbon a child born in 2017 can emit is only 12.5% of the amount an adult born in 1950 could emit if the global temperature rise is limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The younger the generation, the more drastically they must reduce carbon emissions, so it’s argued that their basic rights, such as the right to life and the pursuit of happiness, are being infringed upon.

On this day, Han Je Ah, a sixth-grader who attended as a witness on behalf of the 61 plaintiffs, read her prepared final argument, stating, “Most adults avoid answering problems like solving the climate crisis, emphasizing childishness as if children don’t understand the world well. It seems like they are passing the responsibility to us, the adults of the future.”

Kim Young Hee, the president of an anti-nuclear lawyers’ collective, Sunflower, representing the lawsuit, called for a swift and fair verdict from the Constitutional Court.

In response, former Climate Ambassador Yoo Yeon Chul explained, “We just need to faithfully implement the Paris Agreement and the Carbon Neutrality Basic Act over the long haul, and set up a good reduction target (GST) that needs to be submitted every five years”.

The judges will conclude deliberation, and the verdict is expected to be reached as early as September of this year.