Switzerland’s flag is a big plus sign, but its climate change policies were just handed a big minus.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled on Tuesday in favor of 2,400 elderly Swiss women who’d taken their government to court over its climate change policies. The group, Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz, argued that Switzerland had not done enough to combat climate change and prevent more frequent heat waves — a phenomenon that disproportionately impacts older people’s health. The ruling can’t be appealed and sets a weighty legal precedent for climate litigation in the EU and beyond.

Granny Thunberg

The ruling in favor of KlimaSeniorinnen doesn’t immediately dole out punishments for Switzerland, but it does mandate the country to revamp its climate policies, so its targets align with the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Dr. Birsha Ohdedar, a lecturer in environmental and climate change law at the SOAS University of London, told The Daily Upside it’s rare to see a case like this brought by older people. “While there are numerous instances where petitioners have been youth or children, cases involving senior citizens are less common, making this case particularly unique in that regard.” However, Ohdedar thinks the case could meaningfully impact a wide range of climate litigation, even when it’s brought by youngsters:

• “Its success may set a precedent for similar cases elsewhere, mirroring the trend we’ve seen with youth petitioners emerging in various countries such as Europe, Australia, Pakistan, India, Colombia, and the USA,” Ohdedar said.
• Ohdedar said the ruling also has the potential to influence other international courts. “Of particular interest is the Inter-American Court, which, like its European counterpart, deals with human rights issues,” said Ohdedar, as the Inter-American Court has been asked to issue an advisory opinion on how climate change and human rights intersect.

Professor Lisa Vanhala of University College London told The Daily Upside the case’s impact would be far-reaching. “We have seen a huge increase in the number of climate change legal cases around the world,” Vanhala said, adding, “What this judgment makes clear is that European states have obligations to protect the right to private and family life in the context of climate impacts.” Vanhala said six more pending ECHR cases will be directly colored by the ruling, and the decision will “begin to shape the way that national courts interpret human rights obligations in a warming world.”

The Price Tag: Now that European countries (the ECHR has 46 member states, including the Brexited UK) are vulnerable to litigious citizens, the question of the bill remains. A European lobby group called the European Round Table for Industry published a report Tuesday that said to reach its decarbonization goals by 2030, Europe will need about $800 billion plugged into its various industries from both “public and private capital.” That’s about $114 billion per year between now and then, give or take.

It’s very meta if you think about it. TikTok is taking a page out of Meta’s playbook by taking a page out of Meta’s playbook.

Amid the possible twilight of its US existence, the short-form video app said it will soon launch “TikTok Notes,” a photo-and-text-based platform intended to mimic the appeal of Instagram. The social media copycat trend continues.

Do it for the TikTok Notes

It’s a tech move right out of “Annie Get Your Gun.” Meta has spent the better part of four years relentlessly chasing TikTok’s popularity, launching short-form Instagram Reels and luring creators with all sorts of perks and promises. Earlier this month, Meta expanded the short-form vertical video player to Facebook and its other platforms.

Now, TikTok is playing an Uno Reverse card, developing “a new app for photo posts,” as first reported by TechCrunch and later confirmed by the company. Parent company ByteDance, meanwhile, may soon surpass Meta as the world’s largest social media company by sales; in March, sources told the Financial Times that the privately held company generated around $120 billion in revenue in 2023, up 40% from a year before, with US TikTok ad sales accounting for about $16 billion of that. Meta last year did $135 billion in global revenue.

Still, TikTok’s Notes unveiling comes as user growth is beginning to slow for the much-ballyhooed China-owned app, and audience eyeballs suddenly seem up for grabs:

• According to SensorTower data reported by the FT, TikTok saw about 1.12 billion monthly active users (MAUs) in the last quarter of 2023, 12 million fewer than a year earlier, while Instagram’s MAUs rose by about 13 million to hit 1.47 billion. Overall, Instagram beat TikTok in total downloads last year, too, with new downloads increasing 20% to hit 768 million, while TikTok hit 733 million downloads, or a meager 4% growth rate.
• On Monday, The Information reported that in Spain, France, and other markets where downloads have stagnated, TikTok will soon launch another new app — dubbed the Coin App internally, and TikTok Lite publicly — that offers users financial incentives such as gift cards and digital tips for viewing, sharing, and uploading content. A similar app already debuted in Japan and South Korea.

Search and Destroy: Meta isn’t the only platform getting its toes stepped on. TikTok has been incentivizing creators to make content that’s more easily searchable, as younger internet users continue to use the platform as a substitute for Google — a trend that’s apparently been worrying Google’s C-suite. Indeed, any looming TikTok ban will have plenty of winners and losers outside of a billion-plus desperately bored teenagers.

Moderna may just have another shot at glory.

On Tuesday, the ascendant biopharma player announced positive results in an early-stage trial of the individualized cancer vaccine it developed with Merck. The news sent its share price soaring to a nearly three-month high.

Jab Gab

Moderna has long touted that the mRNA vaccine technology it helped revolutionize during the global dash to create a coronavirus vaccine could be repurposed for a variety of medical uses. This vaccine, mRNA-4157, uses the method to train the immune system to identify and attack specific mutations in cancer cells.

The early-stage trial, conducted on patients already prescribed Merck’s Keytruda to treat certain types of head and neck cancer, produced some positive results — and hinted at an even brighter future for the vaccine:

• Together, the two treatments showed a strong promise of extending survival for cancer patients, versus treatment featuring just Keytruda alone. 
• In a note published Tuesday, Jefferies analyst Michael Yee wrote “The data continue to validate the individualized therapy platform and suggests it could potentially work in indications outside melanoma,” which mRNA-4157 had previously shown promise in treating in a separate trial.

Bread and Butter: Moderna isn’t forgetting who brought it to the dance. Late in March, the company announced the latest version of its Covid-19 vaccine, which lasts longer while refrigerated and requires a lower dose compared with previous versions. Meanwhile, fellow pandemic-era darling Pfizer announced positive final-stage trial results for Abrysvo, its RSV vaccine, clearing the way for FDA approval for US adults under 60. It’s already been approved for adults 60 and older. And the potential is huge: Bloomberg Intelligence estimates the adult RSV vaccine market could hit $11 billion by 2032. Remember to wash your hands like we all learned.