Judge Rules in Favor of Montana Youths in a Landmark Climate Case
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/14/us/montana-youth-climate-ruling.html?unlocked_article_code=erJqxS2QJGDGDp0zoB8
A group of young people in Montana won a landmark lawsuit on Monday when a judge ruled that the state’s failure to consider climate change when approving fossil fuel projects was unconstitutional.
[...] The ruling means that Montana, a major coal and gas producing state that gets one-third of its energy by burning coal, must consider climate change when deciding whether to approve or renew fossil fuel projects.
The Montana attorney general’s office said the state would appeal, which would send the case to the state Supreme Court.
[...] The Montana case revolved around language in the state Constitution that guarantees residents “the right to a clean and healthful environment,” and stipulates that the state and individuals are responsible for maintaining and improving the environment “for present and future generations.”
A handful of other states have similar guarantees, and young people in Hawaii, Utah and Virginia have filed lawsuits that are slowly winding their way through courts. A federal case brought by young people, which had been stalled for years, is once again moving, heading toward a June trial in Oregon.
[...] Montana has 5,000 gas wells, 4,000 oil wells, four oil refineries and six coal mines. The state is a “major emitter of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, in absolute terms, in per person terms, and historically,” Judge Kathy Seeley of Montana District Court wrote. Adding up the amount of fossil fuels extracted, burned, processed and exported by the state, the court found that Montana is responsible for as much carbon dioxide as produced by Argentina, the Netherlands or Pakistan.
In her ruling, the judge found that the state’s emissions “have been proven to be a substantial factor” in affecting the climate. Laws that limited the ability of regulators to consider climate effects were unconstitutional, she ruled.
She added that Montanans “have a fundamental constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment, which includes climate as part of the environmental life-support system.”
The trial, which took place in June, involved testimony from climate scientists who detailed how increases in greenhouse gas emissions as a result of human activity were already causing health and environmental damage, and how those effects were likely to accelerate unless action was taken.