A little island just won a big court case. The tiny Caribbean island of Bonaire, a special municipality of the Netherlands, won a ruling in the Hague District Court that the Dutch government must draw up a plan to protect its residents from the effects of climate change. The court also ruled that the government discriminated against Bonaire’s people by not taking “timely and appropriate measures” before it’s too late. The island’s residents are Dutch citizens.

Bonaire, like other island territories and countries, is increasingly threatened by rising sea levels caused by global warming. Climate change has also led to a greater threat from tropical storms and extreme rainfall, which are predicted to worsen in the coming years.

The court case was brought by eight Bonaire residents backed by Greenpeace. Plaintiff Jackie Bernabela wept as she exclaimed, “The judges heard us. I am very happy.” And hear them they did. The judges gave the government 18 months to set up a legally binding plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050, the country’s commitment in international treaties.

This isn’t the first case Holland has lost to environmentalists. In 2019 the Dutch Supreme Court upheld decisions in lower courts that the government is obliged to urgently and significantly reduce emissions in line with its human rights obligations. The case was brought by 886 Dutch citizens and the Dutch environmental organization Urgenda. The court ruled that the government must cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 25 percent by the end of 2020 compared to 1990 levels.

The ruling was based on articles in the European Convention on Human Rights. Unfortunately we aren’t subject to the convention.

This was the first court case in the world in which citizens established that their government has a legal duty to prevent climate change—a landmark victory. Because of the international significance of the case, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights published a news release about the decision noting that “the decision confirms that the Government of the Netherlands and, by implication, other governments have binding legal obligations, based on international human rights law, to undertake strong reductions in emissions of greenhouse gasses.”

Several climate cases have been instigated against both the federal and provincial governments in Canada as well. Perhaps the most interesting is Ontario v. Mathur. In 2018, Ontario repealed its previous emissions reduction target and replaced it with a new, lower target. A group of youth applicants argued this violated their Charter rights, claiming the target fell short of international scientific consensus. After bouncing around the lower courts, the Supreme Court ruled that the case deserves to proceed. The case, first of its kind in Canada to get this far, has significant implications for future climate change litigation.

We desperately need a boost in meeting our climate targets. Currently we aren’t on track to meet any of them, not the 2030 Paris Agreement commitment, nor the long-term goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050.

In fact we’ve been slacking off. We have eliminated federal consumer carbon pricing, ended green home retrofit funding and cancelled the oil and gas emissions cap. Alberta and Saskatchewan have suspended their industrial carbon prices, and Ontario repealed its climate accountability legislation. We have the worst performance in the G-7.

Apparently summer-long forest fires aren’t convincing enough. We need yet more prompting to fully confront the crisis. Maybe if we had an island in the Caribbean the natives, watching their homeland pummelled by tropical storms and rising sea levels, would force our hand with some legal muscle.

If not, we would at least be able to spend our warm winter vacations in Canada rather than in Florida and Arizona, the land of the world’s most dangerous climate change denier.