Urgenda is a nonprofit foundation (stichting) in the Netherlands which aims to help enforce national, European and international environment treaties.

In 2013, Urgenda filed a lawsuit against the state of the Netherlands – respectively also against the government – at the court of The Hague, to force them to make more effective policies that reduce the amount of emissions, with the aim to protect the people of the Netherlands against the effects of climate change and pollution.

It was founded in 2007 by Jan Rotmans (professor at the Erasmus University (Rotterdam) and Marjan Minnesma (lawyer, economic scientist and philosopher).

[citation needed] Urgenda Foundation v State of the Netherlands (2019) (in Dutch: Klimaatzaak Urgenda [1]) is climate change litigation heard by the Supreme Court of the Netherlands related to government efforts to curtail carbon dioxide emissions.

The case was brought against the Dutch government in 2013, arguing the government, by not meeting a minimum carbon dioxide emission-reduction goal established by scientists to avert harmful climate change, was endangering the human rights of Dutch citizens as set by national and European Union laws.