Event

Courts, Stories, Consequences: The Impacts of Climate Litigation, and the People Behind It

Name: Courts, Stories, Consequences: The Impacts of Climate Litigation, and the People Behind It
Start: 2026-10-12T19:30:00.000Z
End: 2026-10-12T22:00:00.000Z
Location: L'Argenteria, Via Roberto Da Bari 139

12 October 2026 — L'Argenteria, Via Roberto Da Bari 139

A joint event CLIMPACT × PersoNa

A Sud in Italy, Notre Affaire à Tous, in France, and Aurora in Sweden each took their governments to court over the adequacy of their climate policies, with different outcomes. In each of these cases, the organization members and activists were also the people who built the campaign around the litigation, who decided how the latter would be presented to the press and to the public, and who have since monitored what the case did and failed to do in the years that followed.

The evening draws on the double role that each guest and organization has played, as claimant and as campaigner. We will hear what moved them to act, at the outset and along the way; which obstacles stood in their path, and which levers they were able to pull against them; which alliances and openings carried them forward; and what their case produced, in the courtroom and beyond it. Finally, they will tell us what has changed, in law and policy, in public debate and within the organizations themselves, and, where change has yet to come, what has held it back.

Much of what these cases produced left no document behind. What the litigation costed the organization that brought it, what it made possible afterward, what it closed off, which consequences were anticipated and which were not: for all those impacts, the people who prepared, supported and campaigned, are an indispensable source.

Their perspectives and insights they bring, are part of what CLIMPACT sets out to record. The project examines 500 cases worldwide across every domain in which litigation may leave a mark, from judicial doctrine, legislation and administrative practice to media coverage, public discourse on climate responsibility, and the capacity of civil-society networks, and it draws on legal, sociological and economic analysis conducted in parallel on the same case. Within that design, the insights provided by individual claimants, by the organizations that acted as parties, and by those who promoted or supported the litigation without appearing in the proceedings are a source in their own right, gathered through surveys addressed to them and through the study of how cases are constructed and carried.

The PersoNa project - ‘Personal Narratives in Climate Litigation’ tackles a topic that is at the core of this evening: what judges can learn about climate change from the people who live its impacts, and what happens when those lived accounts enter a courtroom. Most climate cases rest on institutional science, yet cases such as KlimaSeniorinnen v. Switzerland, Duarte v. Portugal, Herrera Carrión et al. v. Ministerio del Ambiente del Ecuador, and Sustaining the Wild Coast v. Minister of Mineral Resources of South Africa have foregrounded the experience of affected people. The project examines how personal narratives, understood as accounts of lived climate impacts, affect judges, lawyers and parties and shape wider societal engagement with litigation. Using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, we explore the conditions under which courts accept personal narratives as credible evidence to establish standing or demonstrate harm. The three organizations here tonight speak closely to the project’s focus: how they built and carried the personal accounts behind their cases is part of what PersoNa sets out to understand.

The cases and the organizations behind them

Notre Affaire à Tous and L’Affaire du Siècle (France). Notre Affaire à Tous is a French non-profit association founded in 2015 that uses the law as a tool for climate justice. In 2018, with Greenpeace France, Oxfam France and the Fondation pour la Nature et l’Homme, it launched L’Affaire du Siècle, the first climate case against the French State, backed by over two million signatures. In 2021 the Paris Administrative Court found the State liable and ordered it to repair the damage caused by exceeding its carbon budget; the associations’ request to enforce that ruling is pending before the Paris Administrative Court of Appeal. Notre Affaire à Tous is also a claimant in the duty-of-vigilance case against TotalEnergies, won in June 2026, and supports a 2025 action on climate adaptation brought by disaster-affected people before the Conseil d’État.

A Sud and Giudizio Universale (Italy). A Sud – Ecologia e Cooperazione is a Rome-based association, founded in 2003, working on environmental and social justice through research, education, campaigning and the documentation of environmental conflicts. In June 2021 it launched Giudizio Universale, the first climate case against the Italian State, with more than 200 claimants: 24 associations and 179 individuals, 17 of them minors. In February 2024 the Civil Court of Rome declared the claim inadmissible for lack of jurisdiction. The appeal, which draws on the ECtHR’s KlimaSeniorinnen judgment and on a 2025 Court of Cassation ruling recognising civil courts’ jurisdiction over climate claims, is pending before the Rome Court of Appeal, with a hearing on 21 October 2026. To date, it is the only climate case in which A Sud is a party.

Aurora and Aurora v. Sweden (Sweden). Aurora is a youth-led Swedish association formed to take the State to court over its climate policy. In November 2022, more than 600 young people, including Greta Thunberg, sued the State under the European Convention on Human Rights. In February 2025, the Supreme Court held that the case could not be tried, as individual claimants did not meet the victim-status threshold set in KlimaSeniorinnen, while suggesting that an association might have standing; Aurora withdrew the case and was ordered to pay the State’s costs. In February 2026, it filed a second case as an association, targeting the lack of emission-reduction measures after 2030 and citing the 2025 ICJ advisory opinion. The State has asked for a reference to the CJEU; the main hearing is set for 28 September 2027.

Invited and confirmed activists/NGO members: Filippo Garelli (A Sud), Paul Mougeolle (Notre Affaire à Tous), Ida Edling (Aurora)