A landmark youth climate lawsuit, Juliana v. United States, is finally going to trial, after a December 29 ruling by District Court Judge Aiken that rejects the U.S. government’s latest bid to have the case dismissed.
“This catastrophe is the great emergency of our time and compels urgent action,” Aiken wrote [pdf] in her 49-page judgement. “As this lawsuit demonstrates, young people—too young to vote and effect change through the political process—are exercising the institutional procedure available to plead with their government to change course.”
Through eight years of pre-trial motions, the U.S. government under three presidential administrations has responded to the Juliana plaintiffs with an “unhurried, inchmeal, bureaucratic response to our most dire emergency,” the judge said.
But “the judiciary is capable and duty-bound to provide redress for the irreparable harm government fossil fuel promotion has caused,” she added, in a ruling that draws supportive citations from UN Secretary General António Guterres, U.S. President Joe Biden, Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, and climate author David Wallace-Wells.
“Some may balk at the Court’s approach as errant or unmeasured, but more likely than not, future generations may look back to this hour and say that the judiciary failed to measure up at all,” Aiken wrote. “In any case over which trial courts have jurisdiction, where the plaintiffs have stated a legal claim, it is the proper and peculiar province of the courts to impartially find facts, faithfully interpret and apply the law, and render reasoned judgment. Such is the case here.”
“This path to justice has been over eight long years in coming,” said Julia Olson, chief legal counsel for Our Children’s Trust. “Finally, in 2024, the Juliana plaintiffs will have their long-awaited trial and the federal government’s fossil fuel energy system will be measured and judged by the fundamental constitutional rights of these youth.”
The 21 Juliana plaintiffs launched their constitutional lawsuit in 2015, asserting that “through the government’s affirmative actions that cause climate change, it has violated the youngest generation’s constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property, as well as failed to protect essential public trust resources,” Eugene, Oregon-based Our Children’s Trust says [pdf] in a release. The latest round in the case began in June, 2023, when Aiken allowed the youth to file an amended statement of claim and the U.S. Department of Justice asked her to dismiss it.
The ruling has Our Children’s Trust on a roll coming into 2024. On December 13, a Federal Court of Appeals panel ruled unanimously that 15 youth plaintiffs in Canada can amend a legal claim supported by OCT, the David Suzuki Foundation, and the Pacific Centre for Environmental Law and Litigation. And in August, a judge in Montana sided with youth plaintiffs in what was heralded as a “sweeping constitutional win” and a “game changer” for climate litigation in the U.S.
climate goals will not be met. I would like to see more stories on climate migration into northern US and Canada and how these cities will have to cope.