Appeals court dismisses climate change lawsuit filed by young Oregon activists against U.S. government

SEATTLE– A federal appeals court on Wednesday dismissed a long-running lawsuit brought by young Oregon-based climate activists who claimed the U.S. government’s role in climate change violated their constitutional rights.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals previously ordered the case dismissed in 2020, saying the task of determining the nation’s climate policies should fall to politicians, not judges. But U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken in Eugene, Oregon, instead allowed the activists to amend their lawsuit and ruled last year that the case could go to trial.

Acting at the request of the Biden administration, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit issued an order Wednesday requiring Aiken to dismiss the case, and she did so. Julia Olson, an attorney with Our Children’s Trust, the nonprofit law firm representing the activists, said they plan to ask the 9th Circuit to rehear the case with a larger number of judges.

“I have been advocating for my government to hear our case since I was ten years old, and I am now almost 19,” one of the activists, Avery McRae, said in a press release issued by the cabinet. lawyers. “A functioning democracy would not push a child to seek protection of their rights in court, only to have them ignored nearly a decade later. I am fed up with the continued attempts to squash this case and silence our voices.”

The case – called Juliana v. United States in honor of one of the plaintiffs, Kelsey Juliana – has been closely watched since it was filed in 2015. The 21 plaintiffs, aged 8 to 18 at the time, said they had a constitutional right to a climate conducive to life. The U.S. government’s actions encouraging a fossil fuel-based economy, despite scientific warnings about global warming, are unconstitutional, they argued.

The lawsuit was repeatedly challenged by the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations, whose lawyers argued that the lawsuit was intended to direct federal environmental and energy policies through the courts rather than through the political process. At one point in 2018, a trial was halted by U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts just days before it was scheduled to begin.

Another climate lawsuit brought by young people has been successful: Earlier this year, the Montana Supreme Court upheld a landmark ruling requiring regulators to consider the effects of greenhouse gas emissions before issue permits for fossil fuel development.

This case was also brought by Our Children’s Trust, which has filed climate lawsuits in every state on behalf of young plaintiffs since 2010.