This October, a group of young Canadian activists took the Canadian climate policies to court. The lawsuit, known as La Rose v. His Majesty the King, accuses the federal government of breaking the Canadian Net Zero Emissions Accountability Act (CNZEAA) by not having a credible climate plan and violating Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The plaintiffs filed the lawsuit subject to the concerns that the country’s current climate policies are unlikely to achieve the objectives of the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement is an international treaty that aims to limit global temperature increase to 1.5°C. However, Canada’s temperature average has increased at twice the speed than the global average since 1970.
CNZEAA is designed to hold the government accountable to achieve the Paris Agreement goals. The act requires the government to produce 10-year plans of how to reduce the emissions. If these plans fail, they are to produce a new plan with measures on how to make up for it. This act is intended to allow full transparency on the government’s climate plans, to ensure that greenhouse gas emissions reach net-zero by 2050.
The current government-set climate targets are not vigorous enough to meet net-zero emissions by 2050. The young activists believe that the government is altering their carbon emission goals for the economic and political benefits of the country. Andrew Gage, a lawyer for West Coast Environmental Law who supports the lawsuit, claims that the Canadian government “have not grappled with the reality that their actions are having devastating consequences to legal rights and the constitutional rights of Canadians”.
The young activists have all faced personal challenges with extreme weather like droughts, extreme rainfall and wildfires, caused by global warming. Such events are breaking Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms: “Everyone has the right to live, liberty and the security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.”
If the Canadian government fails to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement and CNZEAA then they are taking away Canadian children’s right to live in a safe and stable climate.
Unfortunately, Canada is not the only country that is rolling back their climate goals. In 2024, Chris Packham has requested a judicial review of Section 13 of the United Kingdom’s Climate Change Act after Rishi Sunak announced the withdrawal of several plans to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.
The failure to meet net-zero emissions, or for the global temperature average to increase past 1.5°C will be detrimental. Wildfires are just one example of how these changes are already visible: In 2025, 5,131,474 acres of land were consumed by wildfires in the US. Scientists have predicted that the area of land consumed by wildfires will increase from 100% to 500% of its original size, and even heavily rainy areas in the Southeast will increase by around 30%.
