Causes.com
| 8.15.23
What Montana Youth Victory Means for Other Climate Cases
Are you hopeful about upcoming legal climate battles?
What's the story?
- This week, young climate activists won a landmark trial in Montana over anti-climate and pro-fossil fuel legislation. The group argued that the state government passed policies that would rob Montana's youth of a "clean and healthy environment," which is a declared right in the state constitution.
- In Held v. Montana, judge Kathy Seeley ruled that the young residents have a constitutional right to a healthy environment, finding the state's failure to consider climate change in evaluating new projects harmful to the plaintiffs.
- Seely found that the state's emissions "have been proven to be a substantial factor" in affecting the climate, and laws that limit a regulator's ability to consider climate change are unconstitutional. The state legislature will now determine how to bring its policy into compliance with the ruling.
- The lawsuit is the first in a series of similar cases being brought to court in the U.S., with plaintiffs arguing that the government's policies rob them of a future and destroy the environment for coming generations.
What could this mean for the future of legal environmental battles?
- The ruling is expected to help similar arguments in cases in Hawaii, Utah, Virginia, and Oregon. As legal climate battles are unprecedented, defendants are anticipated to attack climate science in these cases. However, Judge Seeley's ruling established that climate science is not debatable, making these tenuous arguments.
- Seeley found that fossil fuel use is the primary cause of climate change and that other fuels can provide an economically sustainable alternative, which will be useful in future cases against the oil industry.
- Judge Seeley included that the young group of advocates are especially at risk "[because] of their unique vulnerabilities." In future cases, young people will likely have a more substantial argument that their constitutional rights are being violated than older individuals.
- While this case gives hope for similar battles across the U.S., the Montana group's argument was stronger than many others because the state's constitution specifically lays out a clean environment as a right for "present and future generations." Only two other states, Pennsylvania and New York, include similar clauses in their constitutions.
What they're saying
- Executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Litigation at Columbia University, Michael Burger, said:
"This was climate science on trial, and what the court has found as a matter of fact is that the science is right. Emissions contribute to climate change, climate harms are real, people can experience climate harms individually, and every ton of greenhouse gas emissions matters. These are important factual findings, and other courts in the U.S. and around the world will look to this decision.."
- Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen's office said it was an "absurd" ruling. Spokesperson Emily Flower said:
"Montanans can't be blamed for the changing climate — even the plaintiffs' expert witnesses agreed that our state has no impact on the global climate."
Are you hopeful about upcoming legal climate battles?
-Jamie Epstein
(Photo credit: Montana Public Radio/Josh Burnham)
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I find it sad that kids have to take their elders to task for what has been done to our planet. I salute their efforts & their win. It should not be up to the youth of our country to make these changes in every state, battle by battle in the courts....
IT SHOULD BE UP TO THE LEGISLATIVE BODY, UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF THE PRESIDENT, WORKING WITH OTHER WORLD LEADERS TO MAKE SWEEPING CHANGES THAT WILL CHANGE THE COURSE OF GLOBAL WARMING!!!
3 states (MT, NY, PA) already have changed their state constitution, and 9 more states are in process. The Montana judicial decision is a step in the right direction, along with the Hawaiian State Supreme Court decision paving the way for states to change their constitutions. Hopefully neither the Montana Appeals or Supreme Court overturn the decision.
"Lawsuits that use a safe climate as an affirmative human or constitutional right are ubiquitous in courts worldwide, but success has been mixed for advocates filing these lawsuits in the US."
"That is slowly changing. In addition to this ruling, the Hawaii Supreme Court recognized a human right to a stable climate in a March ruling against a biomass power plant developer."
"The emphasis on climate science and its direct connection to the harms alleged is a notable sea change, according to Lewis & Clark Law School professor Lisa Benjamin. It’s also notable that the court identifies policies and the law as barriers to a clean energy transition, Benjamin added."
"The clear, constitutional language established in this ruling may also boost the push for affirmative climate rights in more than 15 other states considering similar provisions in their own constitutions, according to Maya van Rossum, founder of the Green Amendment for the Generations national movement."
"Communities across the United States are facing worsening and intersecting environmental threats. As a result, more states are expanding efforts in 2023 to make a healthy environment a constitutional right. Currently, three states – Montana, New York, and Pennsylvania – have established constitutional rights to a healthy environment via Green Amendments, but at least nine more states are considering bills in 2023."
https://www.causes.com/articles/55036-judge-rules-favor-young-advocates-montana-climate-case
https://www.ncelenviro.org/articles/green-amendments-in-2023-states-continue-efforts-to-make-a-healthy-environment-a-legal-right/
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/environment-and-energy/montana-youth-climate-plaintiffs-get-historic-win-in-state-case
The Montana kids are this week's heroes. We need more people to follow them and quickly.
As long as we have the Trump justices and 2 others we have no true justice. Money and corporations will win. Right now we have an oligarchy.
I'm hoping this victory will open a new path for climate activists across the country to win on this front, and I also hope it motivates more young people to show up to vote, protest, and fight for their futures.
We can't force these young people to live on the polluted, disastrous planet the older generations have created.
While I support the ruling, it's only useful in other states that have constitutional support for a clean environment (and there are only two of them). I can also see many Republican state legislatures scrambling to make sure there aren't any potential environmental protections that might currently be included in their state constitutions, largely because they're terrible people who don't care about future generations (or, it would seem, even current generations).
That said, it's a double-edged sword. Asking a judge to rule on whether climate change is man-made opens the issue up to the opinions of one person, who's not really an expert on the subject. A conservative judge may rule that the evidence isn't there that fossil fuels harm the environment. Ultimately, it still comes back to the need for the federal government to seriously address the issue for posterity.
Politicians and the Government were sent information about a technology that exists that can stop CO2 emissions which they blame for global warming. You can even burn coal with no CO2 emitted into the atmosphere. Like everything else it would interfere with money making schemes of the elites like the carbon credit markets. Someday though...
I truly give my best thought on this
We all (pretty much) agree climate change is real and there's no time to waste but we've got to do something. If these kids can win a lawsuit then I'm sorry there should be all kinds of environmental lawsuits all around the country to get this going. Come on people.
The green revolution is the most important issue in the world today for anyone under sixty, yet the conservatives and their boomer corporate masters are doing their best to make the world unlivable for those left when they die of old age and climate change-induced heat stroke.
maybe, but there's a lot of money backing anti climate changes. And justices in this country have been less than honorable lately!!
The youth understand the climate crisis better than the gop politicians.
We must end our dependence on fossil fuels.
I wholeheartedly support the climate change court cases. But it will take getting rid of the current crop of Republicans before we can make more rapid progress. VOTE BLUE everyone!
Millennials and gen z are the future of climate change we need new blood in government in all 3 levels
CAUSES ASKS: Are you hopeful [after the Montana decision} about upcoming legal climate battles? ME: Maybe. The Montana case was unique in that Montana's constitution contained current and future residents' right to enjoy a healthy environment that the vast majority of other states do not have. Thus, the Montana decision could have limited, if any, standing as precedence in the current climate cases in majority red, hard-right, extractive industry-supporting states. That said, the Monana decision certainly might act as a "consciousness-raising" decision that could abet public support against these currently "no-consequences" drilling/mining industries.
there is no mechinism under the capitalist system to fight climate change. Its not profitable, capitalism depends on exploitation of the worker, and the planets resourses. infinate growth can not continue with finite resourses.
while law suits are a useful weapon we have, its costs are out of reatch for most, and the corporations own our courts, and politicians.
we need a new, more fair and just system for the people. we need to seize the wealth of corporations that profit from the destruction of our environment, and use it to repair the damage done, and mitigate future climate damage.
Anything that works...
I am concerned the ruin America "climate change religion" will only enhance China, the biggest problem.
I'm hopeful that any movement will help to avert an env. disaster.
Glad to see we have someone in our judicial system that believes in Climate Change and took the law suit serious.