A coalition of 18 individual applicants and 2 NGOs — including Indigenous persons and human‑rights defenders — is challenging Russia’s climate policies and actions for violating their human rights. After being rejected by all Russian domestic courts, they lodged the application (No. 9296/24) at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in August 2023. Since bringing the case, many applicants have faced repercussions (“foreign agent” designations, loss of citizenship, forced into exile).

The applicants pursued domestic avenues up to Russia’s highest courts and were rejected, leaving Strasbourg as the only forum with the authority to deliver a binding human‑rights ruling with potential to provide protection and justice for people in Russia and beyond.

Proceedings before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) often take a long time. For this reason the Court has a ‘prioritisation policy’ which is intended to speed up the processing of “important, serious and urgent” cases. However, in contrast to other climate cases, in the Russian Climate Case there has been no prioritisation or communication to the State* more than two years later. Every month of delay risks making any eventual ruling too late to prevent escalating global climate harms — repeating past patterns where the Court’s slow handling of “difficult” Russian cases negated meaningful impact.

* Prioritisation means the Court treats a case as urgent and deals with it more quickly than less urgent cases. See the ECtHR’s prioritization policy here: https://www.echr.coe.int/documents/d/echr/Priority_policy_ENG

Communication to the State means the Court officially notifies the government being sued and asks it to respond — the step that turns an application into a live case.

It is the first and only climate challenge by Russian citizens to Russia’s policies at Strasbourg. Given Russia’s withdrawal/expulsion from the Council of Europe and the repressive context for human rights and environmental defenders, this is likely the last such case within a legally binding international forum during the critical climate mitigation window.

Expert evidence shows Russia’s published policy from 2020 and 2021 allows emissions to continue rising to 2030 and only minimally decline thereafter — far above levels compatible with protecting human life and health or with Paris Agreement temperature targets. The Climate Action Tracker assesses Russia’s climate action as ‘critically insufficient’. The case argues that these policies breach constitutional and international human‑rights standards and Russia’s climate obligations.
Most recently, Russia has issued a new emissions decree providing for a weaker 2035 emissions target. The new target is about 22% greater than Russia’s reported 2021 emissions.

Calculations cited in the case estimate Russia’s 2030 target to be 1.5–2.3× higher and its 2050 target to be 11.7× higher than a Paris‑consistent pathway. If replicated globally, this pathway implies ~4 °C warming by 2100.

Russia is ranked as responsible for the third largest cumulative emissions since the beginning of the industrial era. Currently, it is the fourth largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world and the second biggest source of global energy-related methane emissions. As of 2021, it was the world’s largest exporter of fossil gas, the second largest exporter of oil, the third largest coal exporter and the largest gas flaring nation. It has the world's second-largest coal reserves, and its 2020 Energy Strategy plans an increase in domestic coal production annually up to 2035. Russia has no quantifiable methane reduction plans and did not sign up to the COP26 global methane pledge. These factors materially affect global and Arctic climate risk.

Rapid Arctic warming, permafrost thaw and sea-ice loss on Russian territory threaten communities locally and drive global emissions and sea-level rise — making Russia’s policy choices globally consequential.

In 2022, the Russian government acknowledged (https://tass.ru/ekonomika/16334349) that the rate of warming across the country exceeds the global average by a factor of 2.5, and in the Russian Arctic zone by as much as 3.7.

Projections of Russian indicate that the area of near-surface permafrost within the Russian Federation will shrink significantly compared with the 1995–2014 baseline — by 22 ± 7 % under the SSP2-4.5 scenario and 28 ± 10 % under SSP5-8.5 by the mid-21st century, and by 40 ± 15 % and 72 ± 20 % respectively by the end of the century. (https://cc.voeikovmgo.ru/images/dokumenty/2022/od3or.pdf)

The application argues that Russia’s policies and actions violate the rights to life, health, home and family life (Articles 2 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights). It argues that the right to an effective remedy before a national authority has been violated (Article 13 of the Convention) and that the protection against discrimination in the enjoyment of the right to life and health has been violated in relation to youth applicants and Indigenous applicants (Article 14 taken in conjunction with Articles 2 and 8). Finally, under the Convention, the applicants argue that the Russian Government’s interference with their right to bring this case before the Court amounts to a violation of Article 34 of the Convention.