The Netherlands has failed to take sufficient measures to protect the former Dutch colony of Bonaire from the ravages of climate change, judges at The Hague district court ruled on Wednesday.

The country “is pursuing a climate policy that does not comply, in a binding and transparent manner, with the measures that must be taken worldwide to limit global warming,” judge Jerzy Luiten said.

The government now has 18 months to set binding targets for greenhouse gas emissions for the entire economy of the Netherlands, not just the European side.

Eight people from the Caribbean island of Bonaire joined forces with environmental organisation Greenpeace to sue the Dutch government for failing to protect them against climate change.

“For us, this means so much,” Jackie Bernabela, one of the plaintiffs, told reporters after the hearing.

Bonaire is still part of the Netherlands and has the position of an independent local authority area.

The government said in 2024 that Bonaire and the two other special local authority areas, Saba and Sint Eustatius, would get their own climate plan this year. But Greenpeace and the locals say “urgent action” is needed and the measures which have been taken to date are “far from adequate”.

The court criticised the government for failing to create a climate plan for Bonaire, “even though it has been known for three decades that Bonaire is particularly vulnerable to the negative consequences of climate change.”

The ruling found that the government had acted in a discriminatory manner in not addressing climate change on Bonaire. The “residents of Bonaire were wrongly treated differently from residents of the European Netherlands,” the ruling said.

Researchers at Amsterdam’s VU university said earlier that part of the island will disappear as sea levels rise and the coral reef, which protects the island against flooding, may also be destroyed.

The decision comes more than 10 years since the start of the Urgenda climate court case, which ended up with a Supreme Court ruling in 2019 requiring the Dutch state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and so protect the environment.