Greenpeace and two other NGOs on Tuesday announced legal action against the Spanish government, which they accuse of not doing enough to fight global warming.
Read also: Amazon deforestation: Greenpeace denounces France's "inaction"
The move follows similar actions in other European countries, including France, Germany and the Netherlands.
In 2018, the Dutch government lost a historic lawsuit on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
The lawsuit, which the three NGOs describe as a first in Spain, has been brought to the Supreme Court.
Greenpeace and its two co-plaintiffs, Ecologists in Action and Oxfam, ask the court to order the Spanish government to "
increase its climate ambitions
" in order to respect its international commitments, according to their joint statement.
"
There is only one way to avoid devastating climate change: drastically and rapidly reducing CO2 emissions and accelerating the ecological transition
", said the president of the Spanish branch of Greenpeace, Mario Rodriguez, quoted by this communicated.
The three NGOs believe that Spain is not doing enough to respect the Paris climate agreement, which aims to contain the rise in global temperature "
well below
" two degrees Celsius above the level of the pre-industrial era.
Spanish Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has presented the fight against climate change as a priority since his inauguration in June 2018. His government aims for 70% of the country's electricity to come from renewable energies by 2030 and 100 % by 2050. These figures are in line with the objectives of the European Union, but environmental movements believe that progress is too slow.
/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/RFXKLPJ6S5PGXJYGTELOFX5R6E.jpg)
