Serious legal risks lie ahead for the 21 young plaintiffs who are pushing forward in court after losing their ambitious climate change lawsuit against the federal government.
A three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Jan. 17 blocked the litigants from moving ahead with claims that federal policies enabled and accelerated global temperature rise, ruling 2-1 that the judicial branch simply lacks power to fix the issue.
The Juliana v. United States plaintiffs quickly vowed to ask the Ninth Circuit to reconsider the case en banc, before a larger group of judges.
“Much like ...