A recent European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) decision on the obligations of European states to study carbon-intensive permitting decisions crystallizes how global climate commitments may be beginning to harden into justiciable standards in some jurisdictions.
The ECHR’s judgment in Greenpeace Nordic v. Norway continues a trend in which courts reviewing climate issues grapple with the consequences of greenhouse gas emissions by requiring project-specific information be made available before government decisions are taken. Even though the judgment only directly impacts European countries, the ECHR’s judgment has at least five practical implications for governments and carbon‑intensive businesses.
- Downstream combustion emissions are increasingly required in environmental assessments. Quantifying “Scope 1,” (direct emissions) “Scope 2,” (indirect emissions from purchased energy) and even “Scope 3” (other indirect emissions) is becoming routine in many multinational businesses. Courts across various jurisdictions now expect agencies, and, by extension, developers supplying the record, to quantify and analyze downstream emissions, address cumulative and transboundary effects, and situate those impacts against applicable climate targets. The ECHR has joined them.
- The timing of climate-related challenges matters. While the ECHR rejected the substance of Greenpeace Nordic’s challenge as it was mounted, it accepted implicitly that later Norwegian processes would need to evaluate project-specific impacts in ways which could result in the imposition of more stringent conditions for a project’s operation or even an outright denial.
- The decision emphasizes that, in Europe, public participation remains a core compliance issue and influences whether a project should be granted government permission to operate. Early, transparent presentation of climate impacts, alternatives, and mitigation reduces procedural vulnerability and aligns with social expectations in the European context that projects will generally seek to mitigate additional climate impacts.
- Integrate climate diligence into investment decisions. The ECHR framework now expects Plan for Development and Operation submissions to incorporate stress‑testing against Paris Agreement‑consistent price trajectories and climate risk — an approach consistent with investor expectations and emerging due‑diligence regimes.
- The decision presents a reminder that viewing trends in a single country likely generates an unwarranted level of certainty as to what the future holds. Anticipate cross‑pollination and even where ultimate remedies differ by forum, a common procedural core is taking shape. Quantify Scope 1–3 emissions, assess cumulative or transboundary effects, and disclose these early as regulators may reserve the right to revoke permits for projects when project-specific environmental assessments indicate that the project could contribute directly or indirectly to climate change.
The Decision
Greenpeace Nordic targeted Norway’s 2016 decision to award 10 petroleum exploration licenses in the Barents Sea. Two non-governmental organizations and six individuals argued that Norway breached Articles 2 and 8 of the European Convention by authorizing activities that ultimately drive greenhouse gas emissions, including downstream combustion abroad.
The case hinged on whether Article 8 — dealing with private and family life — obligates a state to act to address climate impacts from “potentially dangerous” activities. The court held that Article 8 applies to climate risks where there is a sufficiently close link between state authorization and serious adverse effects on life, health, well‑being, or quality of life. It accepted that exploration licenses are a necessary step toward extraction and eventual combustion and that this chain is adequate to trigger procedural protection, even if multiple approvals intervene and some licenses are later relinquished. Organizational applicants had standing but the individual plaintiffs did not as their injuries were, in essence, too removed from the issues they challenged.
Having accepted that Article 8 obligates states to address climate, the ECHR held that, before authorizing potentially dangerous activities, states subject to the European Convention must ensure an adequate, timely, good‑faith, and comprehensive assessment, grounded in best available science, that (1) quantifies anticipated greenhouse gas emissions, including exported combustion emissions, (2) evaluates compatibility with national and international climate duties, and (3) enables informed public participation when all options remain open. The court aligned these requirements with converging international jurisprudence (including advisory opinions from the International Tribunal for Law of the Sea, the International Court of Justice, and the Inter‑American Court) and with European impact assessment law, emphasizing cumulative and transboundary effects and early, strategic scrutiny.The recent ICJ decision, which effectively transformed climate change from a political issue to a legal one, established that states have a binding legal duty to prevent significant harm. (Our summary of the ICJ Advisory Opinion is here.)
Applying those standards to Norway’s Barents Sea licensing, the ECHR found no violation, accepting Norway’s choice to conduct comprehensive climate review at a later, project‑specific stage. Because later stages of Norway’s licensing proceedings required a project‑level environmental impact assessment before extraction, including exported combustion emissions and public consultation, the ECHR saw no structural deficiency in Norway’s framework as climate issues could be evaluated later.
Climate in International Law
The COP30 conference this week will discuss aligning national policies with a rights-based need to hold an increase in temperatures to 1.5°C. The COP30 agenda emphasizes a need to prevent foreseeable harm from climate volatility, to conduct rigorous, lifecycle climate impact assessments that encompass exported combustion emissions, and to ensure meaningful public participation and access to information in governmental project approvals. This approach largely squares with the ECHR’s approach in Greenpeace Nordic.
The Greenpeace Nordic decision also squares with a host of other recent international decisions.
- It cites the ECHR’s 2024 ruling in Verein KlimaSeniorinnen, which recognized Article 8’s application to climate harms and articulated due‑diligence minimum guardrails for state mitigation action. (We discussed this case before here.) In Greenpeace Nordic, the court adapted those guardrails to the licensing or assessment pipeline for fossil projects, focusing on procedural integrity rather than setting substantive production or phase‑out mandates.
- Greenpeace Nordic echoes the European Free Trade Association court’s 2025 advisory opinion that downstream combustion emissions are “effects” that must be captured by project environmental impact assessments (EIAs) for petroleum developments, and it nodded to the UK Supreme Court’s Finch v. Surry County Council decision requiring consideration of combustion emissions in an EIA for an onshore oil project.
Comparison With Recent US Litigation
Recent US climate cases both converge and contrast with the Greenpeace Nordic decision. Some examples include the following.
- In its unanimous 2025 ruling in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, the US Supreme Court recalibrated the National Environmental Policy Act’s (NEPA) scope by directing “substantial deference” to agencies on the breadth and detail of environmental reviews and by limiting required analysis to effects proximately caused by the project under review — excluding upstream and downstream impacts from “separate projects” outside the agency’s statutory authority. Framed as a procedural “course correction,” the decision emphasizes NEPA’s role as an informational process, not a substantive constraint, and signals that courts should not micromanage agencies’ choices about indirect and cumulative effects so long as the agency’s decision is reasonable and reasonably explained. This is in tension with the Greenpeace Nordic v. Norway approach, which requires states to conduct rigorous climate impact assessments, allow for meaningful public participation, and pay explicit attention to exported combustion emissions. (We discuss Seven County Infrastructure Coalition here.)
- The Ninth Circuit’s 2020 decision in Juliana v. United States rejected youth plaintiffs’ constitutional claims for lack of Article III redressability, stressing separation‑of‑powers limits on ordering the United States to undertake a comprehensive, court‑managed decarbonization plan. The ECHR’s decision goes one step further: setting procedural minimums for climate‑relevant decisions. However, both decisions leave substantive policy decisions to other branches of government. Where Juliana treats broad, structural climate relief as institutionally non‑justiciable, Greenpeace Nordic accepts that rigorous climate assessment, quantification of downstream emissions, and early public input may be legally required.
- Similar to Greenpeace Nordic, in Held v. State of Montana, the Montana Supreme Court invalidated statutory prohibitions on considering greenhouse gas emissions and their climate impacts in environmental reviews based on an explicit state constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment. (We summarized Held here.) Like Held, the Greenpeace Nordic approach obligates government decisionmakers to acknowledge climate effects. Held imposes a non‑discretionary duty to consider climate in environmental review, and Greenpeace Nordic imposes a similar duty. It adds specificity on exported emissions and cumulative effects yet tolerates timing flexibility if the later stage is robust and genuinely outcome‑determinative.
- In a fourth case, Lighthiser v. Trump, out of Montana federal court, the court both accepted the potential that climate issues will injure plaintiffs and barred the plaintiffs’ requested declaratory and injunctive relief against a number of Trump Administration government-wide executive orders. (For more, see here.) ECHR’s deferral of remedy-related decisions to later phases focused on singular projects preempts the need for a broad injunction in favor of setting procedural minimums which can be later enforced.