Paper Walls: Framing Climate Justice
In the Netherlands, a growing number of houses suffer from foundation damage caused by fluctuating land levels and low groundwater. Climate change is worsening the issue, putting around 425,000 buildings at risk of becoming unsafe within 15 years if no action is taken. Organizations like KCAF and Vereniging Eigen Huis warn that the government’s response has been too slow and too limited. Without urgent intervention and proper funding, the problem will only escalate.
There is a clear disconnect between the legal processes that shape climate accountability, such as strategic litigation in which citizens or organizations take governments or corporations to court to compel stronger climate action, and the everyday harms such as those sinking homes. This gap between those whose houses are at stake and those operating in distant international courts reflects a deeper disillusionment. The long, draining nature of court cases leaves people exhausted, and although litigation can offer hope, it also brings obstacles. Legalistic language, with its technical terms and rigid procedural requirements, becomes a barrier: people facing immediate, material problems may feel excluded from processes and arguments detached from lived experience. It can seem like a linguistic wall separating citizens from the institutions meant to support them.
Governments continue to avoid meaningful action because the effects of the crisis are not always immediate or out of sight. Yet below the surface, the damage expands quietly, eroding the foundations of the structures we call home. The decaying structure becomes a metaphor for the broader climate era we live in, with systems not yet adapted to the world we now inhabit.