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She is leading a group of six young people in a landmark lawsuit against 32 countries, including all EU member states, Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Russia and Turkey. It will be heard at the European Court of Human Rights later this month.
The group, the youngest member of whom is just 11, will argue that government inaction on climate change discriminates against young people and poses a tangible risk to their lives and health.
It is the first time that so many countries have had to defend themselves in front of any court in the world.
“This is truly a David and Goliath case,” says Dr Gearoid O Cuinn, director of the Global Legal Action Network, which is supporting the lawsuit. “It is unprecedented in its scale and in its consequences,” he adds.
Forest fires
The case was sparked by a series of forest fires in Portugal in 2017, which killed more than 100 people and were worsened by climate change.
Andre Oliveira, who was just nine years old at the time, describes it as a “terrifying experience”.
He says smoke from the fires aggravated his asthma, while repeated periods of intense heat have since made it hard to sleep and concentrate on studying for his exams. They even stop him from going outside and playing basketball with his friends.
It is not just their physical health that is affected. Andre’s sister, 18-year-old Sofia, says anxiety about the climate crisis is disturbing her day-to-day life.
Claudia Duarte Agostinho, a 24-year-old ER nurse from western Portugal, gets stressed thinking about the reality of climate change.
“Right now … the big impact that it’s having on my life is the anxiety it gives me daily,” she says.
