The US Court of Appeals ruled that the suit, filed by 21 young people, according to which the US government's energy policies violate their right to be protected from climate change, must be rejected, this time for good, Reuters reported, quoted by BTA.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in San Francisco, ruled that the case should have been dismissed after the court first took up the issue in 2020, when stated that courts cannot force policy changes that are better left to Congress and the executive branch.
Although the young plaintiffs have since limited the scope of their claim to a declaration that their rights have been violated, the panel held that the claims must relate to damages remediable by the courts, and such a declaration would not help claimants directly. The five-page decision ordered the lower court overseeing the case to dismiss the claim.
The plaintiffs plan to ask an 11-judge panel of the same appeals court to review that decision, said Julia Olson, a lawyer for the plaintiffs at the nonprofit legal trust Our Children.
"This is a tragic and unjust decision, but it is not over," Olson stressed.
"Declaring our constitutional rights is one of the few things that has historically changed our nation toward greater justice and equality.
The US Department of Justice declined to comment, Reuters notes.
In their 2015 lawsuit, the plaintiffs alleged that the government allowed and subsidized the extraction and consumption of fossil fuels despite knowing that these actions were causing catastrophic global warming. They argue that climate change is exacerbating situations such as forest fires, droughts and floods, which in turn threatens their health and property. By contributing to climate change, the plaintiffs claim that US energy policy violates their rights to due process and equal protection under the US Constitution.
The youths were between the ages of 8 and 19 when they filed their claim. In 2020, the 9th Circuit dismissed the lawsuit, but a federal judge in Eugene, Oregon, allowed the youths to amend their lawsuit.
The US government opposed the plaintiffs' proposal, saying it was “substantially identical” with issues that have already been litigated.
In recent years, the trust “Our children“ has filed numerous other youth-led climate lawsuits, similarly arguing that state and federal policies promoting fossil fuels violate young people's rights. While several were rejected, a Montana state judge last year ruled in favor of a group of youth who argued that the state's permitting of fossil fuel projects violated a 1972 amendment to the Montana constitution that requires the state to protect and improve the environment.
A similar lawsuit filed by a group of young Hawaiians based on that state's constitution is due to go to trial in June.
The US Constitution contains no such express provision.
A group of youths has also filed a lawsuit in California against the US Environmental Protection Agency, accusing the agency of discriminating against the nation's children by allowing dangerous levels of climate change-causing greenhouse gas pollution.