Youths turn up the heat over climate change

While the lawsuit is currently aimed at the Obama Administration, it will target the Trump Administration by default after January. This means that if the plaintiffs prevail, a court order could require climate action from the new administration, such as halting new permits for oil drilling or reducing greenhouse gas emissions by a certain amount over a given period of time, according to Wood.

However, such an outcome would almost certainly be appealed.

According to Wood, the case could also end with a consent decree — a kind of settlement in which the federal Government agrees to take action rather than go through with a trial.

“If [ President Obama] really wants to secure the climate legacy, he could come forward and put measures on the table as a down payment for the climate recovery owed to these plaintiffs,” Wood said.

“He could make the first down payment on this huge climate debt. And if he did that, that would signal to everybody that he was serious about this climate crisis.”

Still, this outcome could also be appealed by the new Administration — and in any event that the case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, May said, it would likely be “dead on arrival”.

It may turn out that the greatest action on climate change in the coming years will take place at the state and local level instead, experts say.

In addition to the federal case, Our Children’s Trust has also filed similar climate lawsuits at the state level throughout the nation — and they’ve enjoyed some success in Washington state, securing court orders requiring the state Department of Ecology to develop a plan to regulate carbon dioxide emissions. ( Although the agency did develop a plan in response, the petitioners have recently deemed it inadequate and have taken the issue back to court.)

Because state constitutions differ across the nation, it’s difficult to predict exactly how these cases might play out in other places, May noted. But some states may go on to develop or continue strengthening their own climate plans regardless.

“I see across the US the number of governors and the number of mayors who are pursuing climate change agendas in their own places with great vigour,” Esty said.

“I expect that that will continue to be an important element of why the United States moves forward on its climate change agenda, even if there’s some resistance from a Trump Administration.”

And even if the federal lawsuit fails, its effects could still reverberate in other ways.

It’s opened up a new legal avenue for fighting climate change that may become more common in the future, May said.

And according to Esty, the case may end up serving “as a source of inspiration to young people across the world who might, in their own countries and in their own legal context, decide that they should pursue court cases or other legal action against those who appear to be footdragging on the i ssue of climate change”.

In fact, according to Olson, Our Children’s Trust is already supporting similar cases in several other countries, including Pakistan and Uganda.

“I think we will win this case, and it will transform our federal climate policy so that it’s focused on protecting the constitutional rights of young people,” Olson said.

“But I agree that whichever way the case goes, it is serving a very important purpose in reframing the climate crisis as one which affects human rights, and fundamental rights that citizens of the United States hold, and also citizens of other nations across the world.”