Around 900 Dutch people have launched legal action against their government with the aim of compelling the executive to reduce the CO2 emissions being released into the atmosphere. The initiative is led by the non-governmental organisation Urgenda, which has explained that this is the first time an association and a group of citizens have turned to the courts to seek a ruling against their own state on this issue.

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Technically, the lawyers representing the participants in the environmental class action will seek to demonstrate that refusing to adopt policies capable of limiting global temperature rise to 2 degrees centigrade constitutes not only a short-sighted and catastrophic choice for the fate of the Earth, but a genuine violation of human rights.

"We want the Dutch government to commit to reducing polluting gas emissions by 40 per cent compared to 1990 levels, by 2020," Marjan Minnesma, the NGO's director, told the French news agency AFP.

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At the first hearing, held on Tuesday in The Hague, around 200 of the legal action's participants were present: teachers, entrepreneurs, artists, musicians, and also children represented by their legal guardians. "In this way we want to show that this is not just the opinion of a single organisation, but a broad movement of people who are concerned about climate change," explained Dennis van Berkel, an activist with the association, speaking to the British newspaper The Guardian. "We cannot wait for politicians to reach an agreement," Minnesma added, "because there is no more time — we need to act now."

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The objective — beyond the legal proceedings themselves, which are unlikely to end in a ruling against the government — is primarily political: to shine a spotlight on the environmental issue ahead of the world climate conference (Cop 21) to be held in Paris in the autumn. A ruling from the Dutch court is expected on 24 June.