Young People's Lawsuit on Global Warming

I've posted before about this lawsuit,

The young plaintiffs have demanded, among other things, that the courts force the government to “implement an enforceable national remedial plan to phase out fossil fuel emissions” in an effort to “stabilize the climate system.” The courts could then supervise the government’s efforts.

Young people have the most at stake.  If nothing done about climate change, their future could turn grim.  The lawsuit is proceeding.

But Judge Ann Aiken, who is scheduled to preside over the trial on Monday, has been receptive to the plaintiffs’ theory of the case. “I have no doubt that the right to a climate system capable of sustaining human life is fundamental to a free and ordered society,” she said in a November 2016 decision allowing the case to go forward. 

Since then, the case has rumbled toward trial. In an earlier order in July, the Supreme Court denied a government request to intervene, but wrote that the breadth of the plaintiffs’ claims was “striking,” which could be taken as a note of skepticism about the case’s prospects should it reach the justices.

If all goes as planned, [Julia] Olson will deliver her opening argument on Monday in a landmark federal lawsuit against the Trump administration on behalf of 21 plaintiffs, ages 11 to 22, who are demanding that the government fight climate change. It is a case that could test whether the judicial branch has major role to play in dealing with global warming, and whether there is a constitutional right to a stable and safe climate.

Working under a legal principle known as the public trust doctrine, which can be used to compel the government to preserve natural resources for public use, the initial complaint stated that government officials had “willfully ignored” the dangers of burning fossil fuels.

In 2010, she encountered the legal theory that would launch the climate lawsuits when she met Mary Christina Wood, a law professor at the University of Oregon.

Professor Wood had been proposing for some time that lawsuits to stop climate change could be built around the public trust doctrine. But she was no litigator, she said. Ms. Olson was. 

Since then, Ms. Olson has pursued the federal case with meticulous preparation and a relentless work ethic, Professor Wood said. “This could have fizzled with anyone but Julia,” she said. “She has built not just a case, but a movement.”

There are other lawsuits. 

The lawsuit, Juliana v. United States, is the most visible case for Ms. Olson and her nonprofit organization, Our Children’s Trust. The group is involved in similar legal actions in almost every state, and other climate suits around the world.

There success could be the first step towards fighting global warming.  Their failure would be a serious setback.