Cities, States and Kids Sue to Stop Climate Change

The post Cities, States and Kids Sue to Stop Climate Change appeared first on WhoWhatWhy.

Sooner or later, the courts will be in the path of Hurricane Harvey. The mega-rainstorm that left millions homeless could become Exhibit A in the legal argument that the courts have to act to prevent future disasters. Climate scientists do not focus on individual storms but their findings have been clear for decades: climate change will make hurricanes more intense and dramatically increase the chances of “500-year” floods happening in a city like Houston three years in a row.

Harvey has struck at a moment when judges across America are grappling with lawsuits over global warming. Will the courts intervene in a political system that denies climate change and impose cuts in carbon emissions? Will they make the fossil fuel industry liable for coastal flooding? Hurricane Harvey, a landmark event, might pave the way for a landmark decision that a stable climate is a fundamental right.

The climate fight is being fought on a broad legal front. A group of “climate kids” are suing the US government for violating their rights to life, liberty, and a healthy environment; New York State is taking Exxon to court for climate fraud; and coastal communities in California are demanding damages from three dozen of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies.

There is now three times more climate change litigation in the United States than in the rest of the world combined, according to the UN.

The most important case to date seeks to put Donald Trump on trial, along with Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The 21 plaintiffs of Juliana et al. v. United States et al. — children and youth ages 10 to 21 — accuse the US government of failing to protect future generations from climate change. The federal lawsuit was filed on their behalf by Our Children’s Trust in Oregon.

It “is no ordinary lawsuit,” wrote Judge Ann Aiken of the US District Court for the District of Oregon in a decision green-lighting a trial. “It alleges that defendants’ actions and inactions — whether or not they violate any specific statutory duty — have so profoundly damaged our home planet that they threaten plaintiffs’ fundamental constitutional rights to life and liberty.”

Some federal agencies have known about climate change for decades, the suit argues, but the government still massively subsidizes fossil fuel production. “The US government, more than anyone else, is responsible for the level of carbon dioxide pollution that will determine the climate in our lifetimes,” wrote the plaintiff who gave her name to the court case, Kelsey Cascadia Rose Juliana, in a recent letter to her local newspaper.

Judge Aiken made headlines when she declined to dismiss the case, acknowledging that “the right to a climate system capable of sustaining human life is fundamental to a free and ordered society.” She set a trial date for February.

“The courts are the only way we have right now to protect our rights. Congress and the executive branch are not functional on this issue,” Jacob Lebel, one of the plaintiffs, told WhoWhatWhy.   

Related front page panorama photo credit: Adapted by WhoWhatWhy from sky (Eliza Tyrrell / Flickr – CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) and justice (Tim Evanson / Flickr – CC BY-SA 2.0).