After Court Decision, Climate Justice Lawsuit Youth Vow to Keep Fighting

A recent photo of the Juliana 21 plaintiffs. Used with permission of Our Children’s Trust.

By Nancy Price
Co-chair, Earth Democracy Issue Committee

February 2020

Amazingly, but perhaps not unexpectedly, on January 17, 2020, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals “reluctantly” concluded that the Federal Judiciary can do nothing to stop the U.S. Government in causing climate change and harming children. The Juliana 21 have vowed they will continue to fight for justice in the biggest climate lawsuit in America.

In a July 2019 eNews article, I announced that Earth Democracy and WILPF had agreed to join the Amicus Brief in support of the Our Children’s Trust Juliana v United States lawsuit. This landmark Youth Climate Justice Lawsuit aimed to secure the legal right to a safe climate and a healthy atmosphere for present and future generations, by upholding their constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property.

On July 4, 2019, in Portland, OR, the Ninth Circuit Court heard arguments from both sides to determine if the case was constitutional, that is, did the youth of the Juliana 21 have “standing,” and therefore, could the case be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.

But on January 17 of this year, Our Children's Trust announced in a press release that a divided Ninth Circuit Court “reluctantly” concluded that the youth plaintiffs’ case in Juliana v. United States must be made to the U.S. Congress, the president, or to the electorate at large. This decision finds the federal courts cannot provide the youth with a remedy for their climate injuries.

In her blistering dissent, District Judge Josephine L. Staton wrote that the youth plaintiffs brought the suit “to enforce the most basic structural principle embedded in our system of liberty: the Constitution does not condone the Nation’s willful destruction.”

Judge Staton argued that the youth do have standing, and lambasted the U.S. government’s continued inaction on climate change:

In these proceedings, the government accepts as fact that the United States has reached a tipping point crying out for a concerted response — yet presses ahead toward calamity. It is as if an asteroid were barreling toward the Earth and the government decided to shut down our only defenses. Seeking to quash this suit, the government bluntly insists that it has the absolute and unreviewable power to destroy the Nation.

Julia Olson, executive director and chief legal counsel of Our Children’s Trust and co-counsel for the youth plaintiffs, commented:

The Juliana case is far from over. The Youth Plaintiffs will be asking the full court of the Ninth District to review this decision and its catastrophic implications for our constitutional democracy.

The Court recognized that climate change is exponentially increasing and that the federal government has long known that its actions substantially contribute to the climate crisis. Yet two of the judges on the Panel refused to set the standard for redressing the constitutional violation, to protect our Nation’s children.

The standard is a question of science that should be determined at trial. The majority opinion ignores the fact that we have yet to go to trial on the issue of redressability.

A good article about the decision can be found at grist.org.

STAY TUNED: Earth Democracy will continue to bring you updates on this important case. Please, when you go to candidate events, ask where they stand on the climate and do they support the Juliana v. United States case. If not, educate them!