The Trouble with Carbon Budgets, Offsets and Removals in Climate Litigation against States: The Case of KlimaSeniorinnen v. Switzerland at the ECtHR

[Geoengineering News]

https://academic.oup.com/ejil/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ejil/chaf068/8419947

Authors: Jevgeniy Bluwstein 

https://doi.org/10.1093/ejil/chaf068

Published: 11 January 2026

Abstract

The European Court of Human Rights’ (ECtHR) judgment in KlimaSeniorinnen v. Switzerland represents a critical juncture in climate litigation. By endorsing a national carbon budget in combination with an extraterritorial, consumption-based approach to state responsibility, while sidestepping the contentious issues of carbon offsets and removals, I show how the Court has created an implementation paradox. The judgment cannot be implemented in a meaningful way in a context where Switzerland’s fair-share carbon budget is already exhausted and negative, and where it is almost exhausted if we adopt a per capita approach. A negative fair-share carbon budget would entail an ‘emergency brake’, which no state can afford. A still remaining positive per capita carbon budget would require unprecedented emission reduction rates far beyond the temporality of economic lockdowns imposed during COVID-19. The judgment thus highlights the limits of climate litigation against states at a time of exhausted carbon budgets and an over-reliance on questionable carbon offsets and highly speculative carbon removal promises.

Source: Oxford Academic