November 07, 2025
Dr. Corina Heri & Dr. Hazhar Jamali
On 28 October 2025, a Chamber formation of the ECtHR issued its most recent climate judgment: Greenpeace Nordic and Others v. Norway. This highly anticipated ruling concerned the Norwegian authorities’ alleged failure to conduct an adequate environmental impact assessment before licensing oil and gas exploration on the Norwegian continental shelf.
The judgment examined these issues through the lens of Article 8 ECHR, unanimously finding no violation of that provision. In doing so, the Court rejected claims concerning non-discrimination, climate anxiety, Indigenous rights and access to an effective remedy, and declined to conduct a substantive review of the contested licenses. At the same time, the judgment makes strides in aligning the Court’s assessment with that of other regional and international courts and recognising the importance of procedural obligations around emissions-intense decisions. The present post explores the mixed nature of the findings made, and their implications, in the context of the Court’s overall climate case-law. We argue that the Court’s findings stop short of making sorely needed, resolute findings around affectedness, Indigeneity, and the untenability of continued fossil fuel exploration in the face of the 1.5 degree warming target, while however consolidating procedural obligations.
By our count, Greenpeace Nordic was the fourth-ever climate case filed at the ECtHR. It is the second to yield a judgment, after Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz, with the rest either still pending or resulting in inadmissibility decisions. Since KlimaSeniorinnen was issued by the Grand Chamber in April 2024, along with inadmissibility decisions in Duarte Agostinho and Carême, the Court has rejected several additional climate cases, including one against Germany and two against Italy, with another case against 12 States withdrawn by applicants.
Litigating climate change in Strasbourg is thus by no means a sure thing. Still, several cases remain pending, with more entering the docket on a rolling basis. This includes the upcoming Müllner v. Austria case, concerning an applicant living with a heat-sensitive disability. A UK adaptation case was also filed in the summer of 2025. And a separate application against Norway, brought on similar footing as Greenpeace Nordic by the Norwegian Grandparents’ Climate Campaign, appears to still be pending.
In short, KlimaSeniorinnen was far from the end of the story on the ECtHR’s engagement with climate change. Greenpeace Nordic is the next milestone in this story. It clarifies the key admissibility tests created by the Grand Chamber, but it takes a different tack on the merits, exploring an issue that was not covered by the case-law so far: procedural rights regarding decisions on the licensing and exploration of fossil fuels, as major sources of the greenhouse gas emissions responsible for climate change.
Greenpeace Nordic was, at its core, a youth-led climate case. It was brought by six individual applicants, all born in or after 1993, as well as two NGOs, namely Greenpeace Nordic (Foreningen Greenpeace Norden) and Young Friends of the Earth (Natur og Ungdom). Three of the individual applicants belong to the Sámi Indigenous community.
Domestically, the applicants challenged a 2016 decision by the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy to award ten licenses for petroleum gas production in the Barents Sea to private companies. They argued that the licenses were not preceded by an adequate environmental impact assessment (EIA) and were therefore invalid. This led to a judgment from the Norwegian Supreme Court in 2020, which held that the licenses were valid and found no violation of the right to a healthy environment (Article 112 of the Norwegian Constitution) or of the ECHR. While the Norwegian Supreme Court did find that climate impacts should have been assessed in-depth when making these decisions (referencing the EU SEA Directive), it held that this deficit could be remedied later, when allowing the extraction of any fossil fuels found through the use of production licenses.
This outcome relates to the fact that domestic law provides for a three-step decision-making process. The production licenses contested here are the second step; the third and final step before development and production of oil and gas discoveries can begin requires the approval of a Plan for Development and Operation (PDO), which must include an EIA. The Norwegian Supreme Court held that downstream (“scope 3”) emissions from the combustion of exported Norwegian oil and gas could be better assessed at that later point in time. Before the ECtHR, the applicants contested this approach, invoking the State’s obligation to effectively protect their life, health, well-being and quality of life under Articles 2 and 8 ECHR, as well as making additional claims under Articles 13 and 14 ECHR.
The crucial aspect of the admissibility assessment in this case concerned victim status and locus standi under Article 34 ECHR. These twin tests, redesigned for climate cases by the KlimaSeniorinnen Grand Chamber, remain controversial. In Greenpeace Nordic, the Court concretized them further – without, however, lowering the prohibitively high threshold for individual victim status set in KlimaSeniorinnen. These issues were joined to the merits of Article 8 ECHR, and the Court ultimately reached the same conclusion as it had in KlimaSeniorinnen – namely that the individual applicants had not satisfied the individual victim status test, but that the two NGOs had standing.
In reaching this conclusion, the Court rejected the government’s argument that “any link between the disputed decision, climate change and its potential future impacts on the applicants was hypothetical and uncertain” (para. 232). It established that there was a “sufficiently close link” between the disputed licensing decisions and the risk of climate-related impacts on ECHR rights. Reiterating KlimaSeniorinnen’s rejection of a “but for” causality test, it held that “the link between petroleum exploration and its future production is inherent” (para. 294). The Court also held that information rights concerning environmental risks are preventative and apply regardless of whether risks materialise in practice (para. 295).
The Court then reiterated the high-threshold KlimaSeniorinnen test for individual victim status, requiring (a) high intensity of exposure and (b) a pressing need to ensure applicants’ individual protection. It noted that no grievances about the six individual applicants had been examined in the domestic proceedings. Ultimately, and despite noting that climate impacts are already manifesting in Norway, as well as briefly acknowledging the Indigenous rights implications for the three applicants who belong to the Sámi people, the Court found that the individual applicants did not fulfil the criteria for victim status. In doing so, it noted that the Indigenous rights argument did not demonstrate sufficiently intense hardships to warrant individual protection (para. 303). Separate arguments around the mental and physical health impacts of climate change were also found to be inadequately substantiated (para. 304-305).
The NGO applicants fared better. The Court applied the three-step KlimaSeniorinnen representative standingtest requiring associations to be (a) lawfully established in the jurisdiction, (b) dedicated to the defense of climate rights, and (c) genuinely qualified and representative. It noted that the two NGO applicants satisfied these criteria, inter alia because they “act in the interest of the general public and of future generations – and, in the case of Young Friends of the Earth, also in the interest of its members – with the aim of ensuring effective climate protection” (para. 310).
The Court’s merits analysis revolved around Article 8 ECHR, with the Court refusing to examine Article 2 and rejecting claims made under Articles 13 and 14 ECHR. Examining the scope of the positive obligation under Article 8 ECHR, the Court held that a Contracting State must “do its part” to ensure effective protection against climate-based risks to ECHR rights, with the primary duty being one of regulation ensuring mitigation (para. 314).
In doing so, the Court reiterated only one half of the bifurcated margin of appreciation set out in KlimaSeniorinnen, noting that States have a wide margin of appreciation in choosing specific measures to discharge their climate-related obligations under Article 8 (para. 315). It arguably even expanded that margin by applying it to how States balance climate protection against other competing interests (ibid.). In addition, Greenpeace Nordic ignored the narrowness of the margin of appreciation for mitigation objectives (para. 543 of KlimaSeniorinnen), essentially disconnecting real-life projects from climate targets.
Applying this to the case at hand, after having regard to the special, pressing and global nature of climate change, the Court found that the question of whether the State has conducted “an adequate, timely and comprehensive environmental impact assessment in good faith and based on the best available science” is crucial for evaluating whether it has remained within its margin of appreciation (para. 318). And despite ultimately taking a purely procedural understanding of this obligation, it made far-reaching general findings in establishing the contours of this procedural obligation.
In a noteworthy para. 319, the judgment acknowledges the importance of accounting for downstream or scope 3 emissions and finds that EIAs for fossil fuel projects “must include, at a minimum, a quantification of the GHG emissions anticipated to be produced (including the combustion emissions both within the country and abroad; [KlimaSeniorinnen], § 550)” as well as an assessment in light of climate obligations and informed public consultation (para. 319).” The Court stressed that meaningful public participation is an integral part of this procedural duty (paras. 319–320) and cited broader international legal developments, particularly the converging obligations articulated in the recent climate advisory opinions by the ICJ, the EFTA Court, the ITLOS, and the IACtHR (paras. 320–324).
Despite this promising finding, the Court’s assessment of the Norwegian licenses at stake was purely procedural. The Court accepted that the domestic procedures leading to the 2016 licensing decision were “not fully comprehensive” given especially the failure to examine exported combustion emissions. It noted that the Norwegian Supreme Court acknowledged this omission, but considered that it could be remedied at the later PDO stage (para. 330). The Court did not consider that these gaps necessarily breached Article 8. Instead, it looked at the process “as a whole”, asking whether Norway had put in place procedural guarantees capable of ensuring that no petroleum extraction project would proceed without a sufficiently rigorous EIA and an opportunity for effective public challenge. It found that this was the case, noting that an exploration license does not create an automatic right to extract petroleum, and that extraction (the “PDO stage”) requires an EIA and public consultation, meaning that downstream emissions and compatibility with climate targets could be examined later (paras. 332–334). It also noted that affected parties have access to information and participation at the PDO stage, when meaningful preventive control is still possible (paras. 333–334). The Court further observed that, under Norwegian law and EEA environmental requirements, impact assessments at the PDO stage are already required to take cumulative and transboundary climate effects into account, including downstream or exported emissions from the eventual combustion of the fossil fuels thus extracted. Despite the EIA shortcomings at the licensing stage, it unanimously found that the Norwegian system, assessed in its entirety, complied with Article 8 (paras. 336-337).
Finally, the Court rejected the claims made under other Convention rights. Regarding Article 13 ECHR (right to an effective remedy), it held that the domestic courts “duly engaged” with the applicants’ arguments. Concerning the complaint under Article 14 ECHR (prohibition of discrimination), alleging indirect discrimination based on age and ethnicity, the Court considered it unnecessary to examine the applicability of this provision because no corresponding complaint had been raised in the domestic proceedings (para. 351).
Greenpeace Nordic is a cautious step in the ECtHR’s evolving climate jurisprudence. The Court recognized that EIAs must account for greenhouse gas emissions, including downstream (scope 3) emissions, and must be grounded in scientific evidence and public participation. And this is a highly significant and welcome development. Even though the Court has resoundingly rejected extraterritorial jurisdiction for climate impacts, this means that fossil fuel-exporting States cannot ignore the climate impacts of their products simply because they are exported and consumed by third parties. At the same time, however, this judgment reaffirms that States’ climate obligations under the ECHR are predominantly procedural, not substantive. By accepting Norway’s decision to defer a comprehensive climate assessment to a later stage of the petroleum licensing process, the Court effectively transforms a duty of prevention into one of post hoc correction at a point in time when fossil fuel deposits have already been located and corporate actors stand primed to extract them. In doing so, it weakens the preventive dimension of Article 8 and risks normalising the logic of ‘fix it later’.
This judgment is, in short, a mixed bag. Next to its finding on scope 3 emissions, a notable positive result is the Court’s recognition of representative standing for the NGO applicants. This is important given that backlash against KlimaSeniorinnen and its standing test could have incentivized an even further narrowing of standing in climate cases. In the new age of backlash, perhaps an approach of consolidation without expansion is the most that can be expected from the Court. Lamentably, however, it has doubled down on the abstracted nature of this test, noting that the NGO applicants “act in the interest of the general public and of future generations” in a way unlikely to assuage concerns about actio popularis cases.
Meanwhile, the Court’s strict understanding of the KlimaSeniorinnen victim status test – which led it to reject youth and Indigenous rights claims – is providing deleterious for individual applicants, in ways that threaten the diversity of climate-related claims and the granularity with which the Court is willing to engage with the inequity of climate impacts. This is particularly clear with refence to the rights of the Sámi applicants, where the Court’s approach illustrates the high and arguably exclusionary threshold imposed on individual climate claimants. Despite concrete evidence of cultural, environmental and psychological harm, the Court deemed the applicants’ hardships insufficiently intense to justify individual protection. This constitutes a refusal to engage with the disproportionate burdens of climate change, and marginalizes two intersecting groups whose rights are particularly threatened by climate change: that is, Indigenous peoples and youth.
On the merits, Greenpeace Nordic executed a not-so-subtle shift towards deference. What makes this choice particularly striking is the contrast between the Court’s articulation of principle and its application in practice. The judgment suggests an emerging international consensus reflected in the advisory opinions of international courts (the ICJ, ITLOS, IACtHR and EFTA Court) that climate-related procedural obligations must be robust, science-based, and forward-looking. The Court cites these developments in support of its reasoning, but stops short of translating them into enforceable substantive standards. It prefers to examine Norway’s system ‘as a whole’, finding comfort in the idea that future procedural stages will address or remedy earlier omissions. This confidence in later-stage safeguards effectively weakens the requirement for States to ensure that environmental due diligence is carried out before any politically sensitive decisions are made or fossil fuel deposits are explored.
Equally significant is the Court’s treatment of the margin of appreciation doctrine. Whereas KlimaSeniorinnen drew a crucial distinction here (recognising a narrow margin concerning the State’s duty to act, and a wide one as to how), it is only the latter part that is discussed in Greenpeace Nordic. By omitting this doctrinal balance, Greenpeace Nordic sees fossil fuel decisions purely as measures to implement climate obligations, without examining how they relate to overall climate objectives. This meant that the Court quietly reverted to a deferential stance that grants States wide latitude precisely where international law is tightening expectations. Its silence on the compatibility of ongoing fossil fuel licensing with the 1.5 C limit under the Paris Agreement underscores this point. The applicants explicitly invited the Court to consider whether continued exploration is reconcilable with the scientific imperative of decarbonization. By contrast, the ICJ recently opined that “[f]ailure of a State to take appropriate action to protect the climate system from GHG emissions — including through fossil fuel production, fossil fuel consumption, the granting of fossil fuel exploration licences or the provision of fossil fuel subsidies — may constitute an internationally wrongful act which is attributable to that State” (ICJ, para. 427).
Greenpeace Nordic is a mixed bag, oscillating between far-reaching principles and their deferential, abstracted application. Research shows that deference and proceduralism are often the Court’s response to backlash. Its current institutional situation is certainly a difficult one. However, in the interest of effective human rights protection, it is to be hoped that future climate judgments will re-center concrete impacts, substantive standards, and the need for rapid decarbonization of fossil fuels to stay within the 1.5 C degree warming limit.
Strasbourg Observers is an academic blog that discusses recent developments at the European Court of Human Rights. The editorial team of Strasbourg Observers is based at the Human Rights Centre of Ghent University and the Centre for Government and Law of Hasselt University.
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