Held v Montana Climate Lawsuit
10 hours ago Guest Blogger
From Climate Etc.
by Judith Curry
My reflections on the Held v Montana Climate Lawsuit – the inside story, my written expert report and why I didn’t testify at the trial. Don’t believe the PR about this case from Our Children’s Trust, which the mainstream media has accepted uncritically.
What the case is about
This case has received substantial national and international press. Here is the summary of the lawsuit provided by climatecasechart:
Youth Plaintiffs Filed Climate Lawsuit Against Montana Asserting Violations of State Constitutional Rights. Sixteen young people filed a lawsuit in Montana state court asserting climate change-based claims under the Montana constitution against the State of Montana, its governor, and state agencies. In particular, the case challenges the constitutionality of Montana’s fossil fuel-based State Energy Policy and the “Climate Change Exception” in the Montana Environmental Policy Act. The plaintiffs allege that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions were “already triggering a host of adverse consequences in Montana, including dangerously increasing temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, increasing droughts and extreme weather events, increasing the frequency and severity of wildfires, increasing glacial melt, and causing numerous adverse health risks, especially to children,” and that defendants had continued “to act affirmatively to exacerbate the climate crisis” despite their awareness that the plaintiffs were living under “dangerous climatic conditions that create an unreasonable risk of harm.” The plaintiffs seek a declaration that their right to a clean and healthful environment includes a right a stable climate system, as well as declarations that the State Energy Policy and the Climate Change Exception violate the Public Trust Doctrine and constitutional provisions that protect the right to a clean and healthful environment; the right to seek safety, health, and happiness; and the right to individual dignity and equal protection. They also seek injunctive relief in the form of orders directing the defendants to prepare an accounting of Montana’s greenhouse gas emissions and to develop and implement a remedial plan to reduce emissions “consistent with the best available science and reductions necessary to protect Youth Plaintiffs’ constitutional rights from further infringement … , and to reduce the cumulative risk of harm to those rights.”
The case was filed in 2020. A history of the case is provided at the website for Our Children’s Trust (lawyers for the Plaintiffs), including the full text of the Complaint.
As a quick summary of the trial strategies:
• Our Children’s Trust regards this case as a referendum on the climate change inaction by state governments in the U.S., focusing on how this causing serious harm to children.
• The State of Montana views this to be a boring case about procedural law.
My role
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/06/22/held-v-montana-climate-lawsuit/
