Residents of the Caribbean island of Bonaire, a special municipality of the Netherlands , have urged a court to compel the Dutch state to accelerate its greenhouse gas cuts, arguing that worsening heat, drought, and rising sea levels are making life increasingly difficult.

Farmer Onnie Emerenciana, in his 60s, told the court that soaring temperatures are harming the health of the elderly and poor, while droughts devastate crops and encroaching seas threaten to erase the island’s historic slave huts.

“We are succumbing under the effects of greenhouse gas emissions that we have barely contributed to,” Emerenciana told the district court in The Hague.

Demand For Net Zero By 2040

Bonaire in the southern Caribbean is a former Dutch colony and became a special Dutch municipality in 2010.

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