Estonian Supreme Court Orders State Energy Firm to Halt Shale Oil Plant Construction

Supreme Court judges ruled that the environmental impact in Narva-Jõesuu had not been fully assessed after activists brought a case

Estonia's Supreme Court has ordered the state energy company Enefit to halt construction of a shale oil facility because of the damage it will do to the environment.

Young activists had taken the municipality of Narva-Jõesuu to court over claims that the building permit it granted breached international climate agreements. The court ruled that the municipality had assessed the climate impact sufficiently but not the environmental impact, and revoked the permit.

"It's remarkable that the first climate court case in Estonia and in the Baltics ended in a win," said Kertu Birgit Anton, an activist with the Estonian branch of Fridays for Future, which brought the case, adding, "Every ton of greenhouse gases that we keep out of the atmosphere is a victory for the wellbeing of society and nature."

The court found that the company had failed to properly account for the shale oil plant's impact on Puhatu, a nature reserve on one of Estonia's largest wetlands that is home to several rare species and is protected by the EU's birds and habitats directives. Enefit has been approached for comment.

Alan Tasar from the municipality said the authorities would work to "eliminate" the deficiencies in the plan as soon as possible, stating, "A significant part of our residents are directly or indirectly connected to the large companies here. Their extinction would spell disaster for the region."

Although Estonia, a country of 1.3 million people, has no climate law, it is committed to the EU's target of climate neutrality (net-zero emissions) by 2050. In its ruling, the court stated that it was necessary to establish "a realistic and legally binding" plan to phase out emissions in good time.

"The absence of such a plan would create great uncertainty for individuals regarding the permissibility of many activities in the coming years," the court said in a statement.

The young activist Anton noted that although people in small countries often say their emissions do not matter, this is not true: "The emissions that result from this plant operating and from burning the oil produced there are greater than the emissions of dozens of different small countries. From another country's perspective, this plant is actually very significant."

Source:The Guardian

This news article was translated into Turkish by Doğan Yiğit Şahin and Irmak Gül.