Caribbean Island residents ask the court to order Dutch State to take climate action

Residents from the Dutch Caribbean told a court Tuesday that the climate change has made the island of Bonaire unbearably dry and hot. They asked the judges to order Dutch state to reduce greenhouse gases faster.

Onnie Emerenciana (a farmer in his sixties) told the court the heat was bad for the elderly, the droughts were bad for the crops, and rising sea level could wipe out the historically important slave huts that once dotted the beaches of the island.

Emerenciana, a district court judge in The Hague, said: "We are suffering under the effects" of greenhouse gas emission to which we barely contributed.

Bonaire, in the southern Caribbean, is an ex-Dutch colony that became a Dutch special municipality in 2010. Around 20,000 of its residents are Dutch.

Eight plaintiffs in this case are demanding that the Netherlands reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to zero, 10 years earlier than its current plans. They also claim the Dutch government is not doing enough to protect the island from rising sea levels.

The case only has eight plaintiffs, as it is expensive and time-consuming to travel to the Netherlands to hear the case. However, any decision will be applicable to the entire island.

Greenpeace, an environmentalist group, has backed the case by stating that parts of Bonaire are likely to be permanently submerged in 2050.

Michael Bacon, a plaintiffs' attorney, said that the problem was that "the state doesn't do what it says and keeps stalling climat policies", even though it is predicted it won't meet its goals.

Later on Tuesday, lawyers for the Dutch government will speak.

They have submitted written arguments in which they insist that judges can't set government policy. The Dutch have said that the problem of greenhouse gas emissions is a global one and the Dutch contribution to it is only a small fraction. (Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg; Editing by Alison Williams)

(source: Reuters)