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The growth of climate change claims could transform French administrative Court. France has determined progressively a real climate legislation in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The claimers base their court actions on this legislation and request the administrative judge to take an injunction to reduce greenhouse gas emission or request a compensation for the damages suffered. By Judging these claims admissible, the French Council of State has to verify the facts of climate change. The French judge ordered the government to "take all the measures necessary".

The litigation technique of the class action was supposed to provide the introduction of new jurisdictions and strengthen the actions in favour of the environmental protection. In reality, this tool has been widely ignored in French law, whereas its existence itself express the opportunity of a promising development of the environmental law. The public persons by becoming the common good's guardian, would be placed on a commonality scale in order to protect the components of our common heritage.

After the Commune de Grande-Synthe and Notre Affaire à Tous decisions, the 2004 Charter, and more broadly the constitutional source, appears to be one of the major absentees from the sorting conducted by the administrative judge. However, this categorical observation deserves to be put into perspective in the light of the litigation based on Article 61-1 of the Constitution. The QPC remains, at this time, the only vehicle through which litigants can access to the constitutional resources. In that way, their exploitation produces effects in their climate appeals before the administrative judge. Nethertheless, this access is far from being idyllic and the climate case law of the French Constitutional Council is struggling to fully take off, despite recent development.

The arrival of climate trials led the administrative jurisdiction to draw his function opposite the State facing climate change. By opening his courtroom, by accepting to judge the ecological damage and by creating climate trajectory control, the administrative judge adjust his traditions to new issues, according to an holistic approach that forces the State to assume its role as the guardian of the climate.

While the number of judgments against States for breaching their international obligations to mitigate global warming is rising before national judges, such as the "Affaire du Siècle" in France, the inertia of European courts questions. Recent cases brought before the Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights have given the opportunity to these judges to take part in this movement. However, these judges make the conditions of admissibility a difficult obstacle to overcome. If the Court of Justice of the European Union has already closed the door to its courtroom, the European Court of Human Rights could agree to modify its case law.

Encouraged then ordered, the advent of the safety-net clause was widely anticipated in order to stop the unconventionality. From now on, the small projects prone to have some significant impacts on the environment or the human health are allowed to be submitted to an environment assessment, after auditing the criteria of the article R. 122-3-1 of the environmental Code. However, the complex execution of this device, the blurred links with other proceedings, and the weak legal securing of the projects induced, raise doubts concerning its effectiveness over time.

The ordinance of the 6th April 2022 on the sustainable development of coastal areas exposed to coastline retreat is a follow-up to the Climate and Resilience Act. Although it opens the way to new tools in this area, it nevertheless comes up against the scientific reality of the phenomenon itself.

During the period 2021-2022, the European Union has initiated its first actions for the implementation of the new European Union Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 through two approaches: a global approach based on the "Habitats" and "Birds" Directives and a sectoral approach. The sectoral approach has enabled the adoption of key texts in certain areas such as the conservation and restoration of forests, but has also met with national resistance in other areas such as the conservation and restoration of marine ecosystems. This article therefore proposes to review the European Union's action in favour of biodiversity during this period.

The case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union in 2021 provides an opportunity for the EU judge to deepen his interpretation in traditional areas, such as the implementation of the Aarhus Convention. A number of cases are also brought before the Court, in relation with sensitive topics from the point of view of public opinion, such as the question of the regulation of chemical substances in the European Union.

The water Law focused the past year on the risks management of shortages or flood linked to the climate change, and also on the fight against pollutions. The agriculture and the reuse of sewage were particularly studied, the planning tools have been renewed and the "3DS" Law enabled the institutional framework easing.

Work still in progress… This expression condenses this year of Charter of the environment litigation. Actually, the French constitutional council clarified the interests protected by the Charter and developed the constitutional guarantees of the right to live in an healthy environment.

This column deals with the case-law relating to the French environmental Charter before the Council of State and the Court of cassation over the last twelve months (July 2021 – June 2022). The Council of State has once again not issued any major decisions of principle, even if we note a new contentious annulment based on the precautionary principle. But the period was marked above all by a large number of decisions not to refer QPCs (preliminary rulings on constitutionality) related to the Charter of the Environment, which still raise the question of the limits of the filter judge's office. The Court of cassation, on the other hand, has only issued one decision over the period covered, indirectly related to environmental protection. This was a decision not to refer a QPC in which the articles of the Charter were invoked almost anecdotally.