In a ruling hailed as an “immense victory for climate justice,” the Netherlands’ top court ruled Friday in favor of activists who have for years been seeking legal orders to force the Dutch government into cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Activists in a packed chamber of the Supreme Court in The Hague erupted into applause and cheers as Presiding Judge Kees Streefkerk rejected the government’s appeal against earlier rulings ordering the government to cut emissions by at least 25% by the end of 2020 from benchmark 1990 levels.

The Supreme Court upheld lower courts’ rulings that protection from the potentially devastating effects of climate change was a human right and that the government has a duty to protect its citizens.

Urgenda, the Dutch climate and sustainability organization that filed the original case, hailed the ruling as “a groundbreaking decision that confirms that individual governments must do their fair share to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

“I am extremely happy that the highest court in the Netherlands has confirmed that climate change is a real, severe problem and that government should do what they themselves have declared for more than 10 years is necessary, namely between 25% and 40% reduction of CO2,” Urgenda director Marjan Minnesma told The Associated Press outside the court.

Faiza Oulahsen of Greenpeace in the Netherlands called the ruling “an immense victory for climate justice.”

Reacting to the decision at his weekly press conference, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said: “I can guarantee we will do everything we can to achieve the goal.”