Two environmental organizations faced off against government representatives on Monday as three High Court judges heard the country’s first petition against the state’s policy on global warming emissions.

Representing the petitioners Green Course and Youth Climate Protest, Assaf Fink charged that there was an internal contradiction between the international community’s goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 43 percent by 2030 and the government’s target for the same date of 27%.

The former was set out in the Sixth Assessment Report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2022 as the only way to implement the Paris agreement, ratified by Israel among other countries. That agreement seeks to cap global warming at 2 degrees Celsius (3.6˚F), preferably 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7˚F), relative to pre-industrial levels.

Fink argued that a 2021 government decision to cut emissions by 27% by 2030, compared with 2015 levels, was directly based on the Paris Agreement that Israel had ratified, but was insufficient to keep temperature rises below 2 degrees.

He went on to claim that the government’s policy violated Israel’s Basic Law on Human Dignity and Liberty “not to violate the life, body, or dignity of a human being,” and to entitle every human being to “protection of his life, body, and dignity.”

These, he said, were violated by failures, for example, to prevent harmful heatwaves by not acting vigorously enough to lower the human-generated emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, and other gases that are driving climate change.

Calling for an interim injunction to compel the government to explain how it reached 27% when it should have set 43%, he said Israel had accepted the principles of the Paris Agreement on keeping temperature rises below a certain level and then “turned 180 degrees” to continue with “business as usual.”

The government, he went on, had also promised to pass a climate law within six months that would include a commitment to reduce emissions by 50% by 2030. But it had done neither.

Fink cited an advisory opinion issued last year by the International Court of Justice stating that international law imposes a legal obligation on states to address climate change, and that failing to do so could lead to legal responsibility.

The two sides had different takes on the Paris Agreement’s call for a nation to aim at its “highest possible ambition.”

Acting on behalf of the government, Yonatan Berman said that the Paris Agreement did not require every signatory to set the 43% target, but accepted that national circumstances would influence the target each state set.

He said the target of 27% aligned with the due diligence requirement of the Paris Agreement and reflected the work of multiple ministerial teams and the government’s broader priorities.

Berman accepted that an Environmental Protection Ministry report to the UN last year predicted that, without a series of steps, Israel would only manage to cut 19% of its emissions by 2030. If certain steps were taken, Israel could cut its emissions by 27% to 29% by the end of the decade, he said.

In all events, he argued that Israeli law did not allow the court to intervene in matters of government policy and priorities.

Judge Daphne Barak-Erez noted that the Basic Law allowed for a balance between different needs. But she accepted that the world would not keep temperature rises below 2 degrees C if every government set emissions target cuts that were lower than 43%.

Judge Yael Willner said using the Basic Law’s right to life was too general, given the multiple life-threatening issues that Israel faced.

She also wondered whether it was right for the court to intervene while a climate bill had passed its first reading and was under consideration.

That bill, which the government wishes to include flexible targets, is currently stuck at the committee stage.

The third judge hearing the petition was Ruth Ronnen.

If so, we have a request. 

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