Youth Climate Case Plaintiffs Win Bid to Proceed Toward Trial

Twenty-one young people at the helm of the US climate lawsuit Juliana v. US can move their case forward to trial, according to an order issued by a federal Oregon judge on Thursday.

Judge Ann Aiken of the US District Court for the District of Oregon will allow the case to proceed under the claim that the federal government’s support of unchecked fossil fuel production is unconstitutional.

The young people want a declaration that federal fossil fuel and energy systems infringe on their constitutional rights to life under a stable climate system.

This relief is “squarely within the constitutional and statutory power” of the courts, according to Aiken’s opinion.

“Such relief would at least partially, and perhaps wholly, redress plaintiffs’ ongoing injuries caused by federal defendants’ ongoing policies and practices,” Aiken wrote. “The declaration that plaintiffs seek would by itself guide the independent actions of the other branches of our government and cures the standing deficiencies identified by the Ninth Circuit.”

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit dismissed the case in 2020, ruling that plaintiffs didn’t seek a remedy that the courts could give despite presenting a compelling case on the dangers of climate change and federal contributions to emissions.

Lawyers from Our Children’s Trust—the organization at the heart of youth climate lawsuits nationwide—filed a request to recast the complaint in 2021 in the hopes that a narrower claim for declaratory relief would proceed to trial. That goal may yet be realized with Aiken’s Thursday decision.

Plaintiffs will “seek a prompt trial date so that they and their experts can finally present their evidence of their government’s active infringement of their constitutional rights,” according to a press release from Our Children’s Trust.

The plaintiffs filed the suit in 2015.

“These young people have a right to access their courts and, after several long years, finally have their evidence of climate harm caused by their own government—and how to stop it—heard in open court,” lead counsel Julia Olson said in a statement.

The Department of Justice didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The case is Juliana v. US, D. Or., No. 6:15-cv-01517, Decision and order 6/1/23.