Our Children\u2019s Trust<\/span><\/p>\nGovernments failed to protect the hopes of youth such as Edenshaw in B.C., Aji Piper in Seattle, and Kelsey Cascadia Rose Juliana, a 24-year-old Oregonian who is suing both the U.S. government and her own state.<\/p>\n
And governments have vigorously fought these challenges. In September the plaintiffs\u2019 attorneys in Seattle and Vancouver were on defense, fighting government motions to dismiss their claims before judges even considered their merits.<\/p>\n
Canada \u2018won\u2019 its motion in October and the youth immediately appealed; Washington\u2019s youth still await a ruling on whether they\u2019ll get their day in court. Just two more twists in nearly a decade of \u201cunusually challenging and demanding\u201d litigation is how Eugene, Oregon-based environmental lawyer Julia Olson described the developments in an interview last month.<\/p>\n
Olson founded the environmental law group Our Children\u2019s Trust in 2010, to apply legal theory developed in Eugene by University of Oregon law professor Mary Wood, whose work argued that governments have a duty to protect natural resources that extends to the atmosphere. She hired Rodgers to craft a legal plan, and recruited dozens of collaborators across the U.S. and beyond. On, and launched a legal assault on Mother\u2019s Day 2011 they launched legal actions on behalf of youth in all 50 U.S. states and against the U.S., Ukraine, and Uganda governments.<\/p>\n
The suits, while so far unsuccessful, helped spark the youth climate activism that\u2019s crystallized around Greta Thunberg since 2019. And they set the table for future attempts to achieve in the courtroom what the youthful plaintiffs and their allies have been unable to secure from legislatures.<\/p>\n
Rulings so far have affirmed that government action is allowing an existential threat to grow. A decision in the U.S. federal case cited clear evidence that the government has \u201clong promoted fossil fuel use despite knowing that it can cause catastrophic climate change.\u201d The 2-1 majority expressed regret that, in their opinion, U.S. courts could not step into the breach.<\/p>\n
But the young people and their lawyers hope they are planting seeds that may later deliver victories. An Oregon Supreme Court decision affirmed that the state had a duty to protect certain natural resources, such as navigable waters, and wrote that duty \u201cmight be expanded\u201d in future judgements.<\/p>\n
To which Oregon Chief Justice Martha Walters replied in a dissenting opinion: \u201cthe time is now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\u201cGetting to Zero: Decarbonizing Cascadia\u201d explores the path to low-carbon energy for British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon. All rely heavily on hydropower, are transitioning from resource extraction industries, have rapidly diversifying populations, and face common challenges as they transition off fossil fuels.<\/p>\n\n<\/aside>\n\nThis post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story was produced in collaboration with InvestigateWest, a nonprofit newsroom in Seattle with a focus on the environment, public health, and government accountability. With dozens of people\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":651,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108,267,1628,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7143"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/651"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7143"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7144,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7143\/revisions\/7144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}