2023-06-16 15:59:00
The Brussels government can no longer turn a blind eye, says We Are Nature vzw. Brussels, which announced this Friday to put the Brussels executive on notice so that it respects its climate commitments and obligations. The association calls for the establishment of a moratorium on the urbanization of natural spaces, living soils, wastelands and abandoned land. If this request is not met following the summer, legal action will be taken. “Faced with the abyss between, on the one hand, the acceleration of climate change and the scientific findings of its gravity, and on the other hand, climate inaction, civil society is increasingly resorting to law and justice to be heard. This is the path we are choosing today to make the Brussels authorities face up to their responsibilities.”, argues the association.
“By continuing to urbanize natural sites without undertaking the adoption of a new global plan, the government would not be respecting its international obligations.”
Judicialization of the climate
Last year, the “Gardeners’ Forum” filed a request for a moratorium on the destruction of living soils and natural spaces in Brussels to the office of Minister-President Rudy Vervoort (PS). The request was then supported by 27 collectives of citizens and supported by nearly 40,000 signatures. “After a year, we have received no response. With the collective We Are Nature. Brussels, we therefore ask once more that a moratorium be decreed to protect the natural spaces of Brussels”, insists Bernadette Stallaert of the “Gardeners’ Forum”. Recently created, the association We Are Nature. Brussels is therefore continuing the process in this direction, considering that “there is an urgent need to anticipate climate change in Brussels.”
In concrete terms, the association asks the government of the Brussels-Capital Region to commit to no longer issuing urbanization permits for unbuilt spaces, abandoned sites or fallow land of more than 0.5 ha. as long as a real reflection has not been carried out on the issues of protecting nature in the city.
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A plan that defines the conditions for a livable city in 2050
In December 2021, the Brussels government decided to revise the regional land use plan (PRAS) by proposing new orientations for the Region. These guidelines had taken up those of the regional sustainable development plan adopted in 2018 and the regional policy declaration of 2019 where the executive undertook to modify the PRAS in particular to preserve “sites of high biological value which contribute specifically to the green network ”. But in the eyes of the We Are Nature association. Brussels, the orientations and objectives defined five years ago are now obsolete: “They must be updated to take into account the acceleration of climate change and the evolution of knowledge. The priority must be to adopt a real climate PRAS that defines the conditions for a livable city in 2050”underlines the association.
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Moreover, for the ASBL, by continuing to urbanize natural sites without undertaking the adoption of a new plan, the government would not be respecting the international obligations incumbent on it in the context of the fight once morest climate change. “En signing the Paris agreement in 2015, the Brussels-Capital Region undertook to take measures relating to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, but also relating to carbon sinks and adaptation to climate change. effects induced by climate change. It is on these last two aspects that We Are Nature’s legal action will mainly focus. Brussels”, indicates Jean-Baptiste Godinot, one of the spokespersons of the ASBL.
This is not the first time that the Brussels government has been singled out for climate inaction. In the “Climate Affair”, the Brussels Court of First Instance had condemned the Federal State and the three Regions for their failures with regard to their obligations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
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