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21 kids sued the government over climate change. A federal court dismissed the case.
21 kids sued the government over climate change. A federal court dismissed the case.
Plaintiffs in the Juliana v. US lawsuit alleged the government violated the rights of young people to a safe climate.
By Umair Irfan Jan 17, 2020, 4:10pm EST
A three-judge panel in the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 to dismiss the Juliana v. US lawsuit on Friday, a seminal case involving 21 young people who sued the federal government for violating their right to a safe climate. The decision is a blow to climate activists and shows the limits of the courts’ willingness to assign legal responsibility to the government for the harms caused by greenhouse gases.
The judges all agreed that climate change is an urgent, threatening problem, but ruled that the plaintiffs, who were between the ages of 8 and 19 when the suit was filed, didn’t have standing to sue. They also said that climate policies must come from the legislative branch. “The panel reluctantly concluded that the plaintiffs’ case must be made to the political branches or to the electorate at large,” according to the ruling.
Writing for the majority, Circuit Court Judge Andrew Hurwitz conceded that climate risks are growing and that young people stand to suffer the worst impacts of rising average temperatures, like increasingly destructive floods and fires.
“In the mid-1960s, a popular song warned that we were ‘on the eve of destruction,’” he wrote. “The plaintiffs in this case have presented compelling evidence that climate change has brought that eve nearer.”
Andrea Rodgers, a senior attorney at Our Children’s Trust, the nonprofit backing the youth who filed the lawsuit, described the decision in an email as “unprecedented and contrary to American principles of justice.” Her organization has vowed to appeal the ruling in the coming weeks.
As politicians have failed to deliver adequate climate policies, courtrooms have emerged as a prominent venue for advancing an agenda to limit emissions, and the Juliana case was one of a number of climate change lawsuits working their way through various US courts. More than a dozen cities and counties have filed suit against companies like Exxon for the climate-related harms caused by their products. But the Juliana case stood out among climate lawsuits because it challenged the federal government rather than fossil fuel companies.
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https://www.vox.com/2020/1/17/21070810/climate-change-lawsuit-juliana-vs-us-our-childrens-trust-9th-circuit
