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our children s trust
'Historic' Settlement With Youth Will Force Hawaiian Transit System to Speed Decarbonization
"I hope our case inspires youth to always use their voices to hold leaders accountable for the future they will inherit," said one plaintiff.
Jun 21, 2024
Days before a case brought by 13 young climate advocates in Hawaii was set to go to trial, the state's governor and Department of Transportation on Thursday announced an "unprecedented" settlement that will expedite the decarbonization of Hawaii's transit system—and formally "recognizes children's constitutional rights to a life-sustaining climate."
The plaintiffs in Navahine v. Hawaii Department of Transportationwere between the ages of 9 and 18 when they filed their case in 2022, alleging that the state government was violating their rights under the Hawaii Constitution by investing in fossil fuel-intensive infrastructure that would worsen the effects of the climate crisis.
The case is the first youth-led legal challenge addressing constitutional rights related to pollution from the transportation sector, and according to Earthjustice, which represented the plaintiffs along with Our Children's Trust, the settlement is the first agreement "of its kind, in which government defendants have decided to resolve a constitutional climate case in partnership with youth plaintiffs, committing to comprehensive changes" to reduce fossil fuel dependence and emissions.
Under the settlement, the Hawaii Department of Transportation (HDOT) agreed to "plan and implement transformative changes of Hawaii's transportation system to achieve the state's legally established goal of net-negative emissions by 2045," said Earthjustice.
Specific actions the HDOT agreed to take include:
- Establishing a Greenhouse Gas Reduction Plan within one year;
- Creating a lead unit and responsible positions within HDOT to coordinate the mission of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction throughout the agency; oversee climate change mitigation and adaptation for the highways program; and ensure public highways are upgraded to be accessible for all users, ages, and abilities;
- Establishing a volunteer youth council to advise on HDOT's mitigation and adaptation commitments in the years to come;
- Improving its transportation infrastructure budgeting process to prioritize reduction of GHG and vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and transparently analyze and disclose the GHG and VMT impacts of each project and the overall program; and
- Making immediate, ambitious investments in clean transportation infrastructure.
The department agreed to complete pedestrian, bicycle, and transit networks within five years, dedicating a minimum of $40 million to expanding the state's public electric vehicle charging stations by 2030.
Earthjustice credited HDOT Director Edwin Sniffen with taking "unprecedented leadership to negotiate a resolution and embrace the government's kuleana (responsibility) to lead the way on bold and broad climate action."
The Navahine youth plaintiffs, said Julia Olson, founder and chief legal counsel of Our Children's Trust, "activated the courts and inspired true democracy in action—all three branches of government committing to work together to do what needs to be done according to best available science, to safeguard their futures."
"Our courts are essential guardians of children's constitutional rights and empowered to protect the planet, but they rely on our collective engagement," said Olson. "Young people across the country and around the world will follow in [the plaintiffs'] footsteps, carrying the same values of care, defense, and love of the land to action."
The settlement was announced nearly a year after young climate advocates in Montana won another historic victory in a case arguing that the state had violated their constitutional rights by prioritizing fossil fuel projects.
Three federal judges who had been appointed by former President Donald Trump angered climate groups last month when they granted the Biden administration's request to dismiss Juliana v. United States, a case originally filed in 2015, which argues the U.S. government has violated the rights of children by continuing to support planet-heating fossil fuel extraction.
A judge in Hawaii last year dismissed the state's request to dismiss the Navahine case. Hawaii officials argued that state laws aimed at reducing carbon emissions were "aspirational" and could not be used in legal arguments claiming the state had violated children's rights.
"Transportation emissions are increasing and will increase at the rate we are going," Judge Jeffrey Crabtree of the O'ahu 1st Circuit Court said as he denied the state's request. "In other words, the alleged harms are not hypothetical or only in the future. They are current, ongoing, and getting worse."
Gov. Josh Green, a Democrat, echoed Crabtree's words on Thursday as he announced the settlement.
"We're addressing the impacts of climate change today, and needless to say, this is a priority because we know now that climate change is here," Green said. "It is not something that we're considering in an abstract way in the future."
Andrea Rogers, deputy director of U.S. strategy for Our Children's Trust, said the "historic agreement offers a holistic roadmap for states and countries to follow around the world."
The partnership between the plaintiffs and the state, said a plaintiff identified as Rylee Brooke K., "marks a pivotal step towards preserving Hawaii for future generations—one that will have a ripple effect on the world."
"Being heard and moving forward in unity with the state to combat climate change is incredibly gratifying, and empowering," said Rylee. "I hope our case inspires youth to always use their voices to hold leaders accountable for the future they will inherit."
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'Tragic and Unjust': Trump Judges Grant Biden DOJ Request to Toss Youth Climate Case
"We will keep fighting for climate justice," said one plaintiff, "but this is another dark day for protecting young people from climate harm imposed by their government."
May 02, 2024
A panel of three Trump-appointed judges on Wednesday granted the Biden Justice Department's request to have a landmark youth climate case dismissed, another setback for a long-running effort to hold the U.S. government accountable for damaging the planet and violating the rights of younger generations.
The order handed down by a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel instructs an Oregon district court to toss Juliana v. United States for lack of standing, siding with the Justice Department's emergency petition for a writ of mandamus—which the DOJ itself describes as "an extraordinary remedy" that "should only be used in exceptional circumstances of peculiar emergency or public importance."
Julia Olson, co-executive director of Our Children's Trust, a public interest law firm backing the youth plaintiffs, said in a statement Wednesday that "the Biden administration was wrong to use an emergency measure to stop youth plaintiffs from having their day in court."
"The real emergency is the climate emergency," said Olson. "This emergency was not created by these young people, who have just been stripped of their fundamental constitutional rights by one of the highest courts in our country. Children deserve access to justice."
Calling the 9th Circuit decision "tragic and unjust" and "wrong on the law," Olson said the legal fight is "not over" and stressed that President Joe Biden "can still make this right by coming to the settlement table."
"We will keep fighting for climate justice, but this is another dark day for protecting young people from climate harm imposed by their government."
Juliana v. United States was brought in 2015 by 21 young Americans who argued the federal government has violated their "fundamental constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property" by continuing to allow the extraction of fossil fuels despite knowing their central role in destructive planetary heating.
Three consecutive administrations have worked aggressively to prevent a trial, deploying emergency legal tactics to delay and derail the youth-led case even as climate impacts became increasingly devastating in the U.S. and around the world.
Mat dos Santos, general counsel of Our Children's Trust, warned last month that "it's a mistake" for the Biden administration to "take this position in an election year, especially when young voters continue to be more and more disenchanted with the current administration and the permitting of big fossil fuel projects."
"This is an opportunity for the administration to do right by young people," he added.
Earlier this year, just before parties to the case were set to receive trial dates from a federal judge in Oregon, the Biden Justice Department filed a motion to stay the case and then another to have it tossed, drawing outrage from the youth plaintiffs. Dozens of members of Congress have weighed in on the side of the plaintiffs, arguing they should be allowed a trial to present their arguments and evidence.
Avery McRae, one of the plaintiffs, said in response to the 9th Circuit order on Wednesday that "every time we get a decision as devastating as this one, I lose more and more hope that my country is as democratic as it says it is."
"I have been pleading for my government to hear our case since I was 10 years old, and I am now nearly 19," said McRae. "A functioning democracy would not make a child beg for their rights to be protected in the courts, just to be ignored nearly a decade later. I am fed up with the continuous attempts to squash this case and silence our voices."
Another plaintiff, Nathan Baring, said that "we will keep fighting for climate justice, but this is another dark day for protecting young people from climate harm imposed by their government."
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'Earth Needs Our Help': California Kids Sue EPA Over Climate Pollution
"We're challenging the EPA's failure to protect us. The air we breathe has become a casualty of their opposition."
Dec 11, 2023
As the United Nations climate talks cast a spotlight on the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency, the U.S. law firm Our Children's Trust on Sunday launched a constitutional lawsuit against the Biden administration on behalf of 18 California children "growing up with polluted air and a government-imposed and -sanctioned climate crisis."
Filed in the U.S. District Court in the Central District of California, the complaint takes aim at the federal government, the Environmental Protection Agency, and its administrator, Michael Regan, arguing that the "EPA's conduct in controlling the pollution that enters the nation's air actively discriminates against children, and these plaintiffs, knowingly causing them disproportionate harm compared to similarly situated adults and burdening them with a lifetime of hardship."
Avroh, a 14-year-old plaintiff, said in a statement Monday that "we are experiencing what no one should have to experience. We're facing constitutional negligence. We're challenging the EPA's failure to protect us. The air we breathe has become a casualty of their opposition."
Another plaintiff, 8-year-old Neela, said that "I believe kids can make a difference and the Earth needs our help. I want to help protect the people and places I love. I'm excited to be a part of this case and be a voice for all kids who deserve a healthy environment."
"We feel a constant worry about the future, and all around us no one is moving fast enough."
Catherine Smith, of counsel to Our Children's Trust—which secured a landmark victory while representing Montana youth in state court earlier this year—argued that "in times like this, when the legislative and executive branches have breached their obligation to young people by intentionally allowing climate pollution and explicitly discounting children's lives in some political or economic calculus fully aware of its consequences to youth, courts must serve as a constitutional backstop to end it."
The plaintiffs—who are ages 8-17—are seeking "a declaratory judgment that as children they are entitled to a heightened level of
judicial review over government conduct that burdens them with lifetimes of hardship, that they are members of a constitutionally protected class, and that defendants have violated their constitutional rights," according to the complaint.
"They also seek declaratory relief that defendants have infringed their fundamental rights to life, including their personal security and happiness, and in so doing have also acted outside the scope of their delegated authority," the filing adds. "Plaintiffs seek further relief as deemed necessary and proper to enforce a declaratory judgment after the facts are found and the legal conclusions of the district court are rendered on a full evidentiary record."
Noah, a 15-year-old plaintiff, warned that "time is slipping away, and the impact of the climate crisis is already hitting us directly. We are running from wildfires, being displaced by floods, panicking in hot classrooms during another heatwave."
"We feel a constant worry about the future, and all around us no one is moving fast enough," Noah noted. "The Constitution guarantees every American the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness including and especially children."
Our Children’s Trust chief legal counsel Julia Olson declared that "these children are rising up from fire, smoke, heat, and flood to share their stories of physical harm and despair, along with their clarion call to adults—'our equal rights to life matter as much as yours.'"
"There is one federal agency explicitly tasked with keeping the air clean and controlling pollution to protect the health of every child and the welfare of a nation—the EPA," she continued. "The agency has done the opposite when it comes to climate pollution and it's time the EPA is held accountable by our courts for violating the U.S. Constitution and misappropriating its congressionally delegated authority."
In addition to representing youth plaintiffs in Held v. State of Montana—which the state is now appealing—Our Children's Trust is the group behind Juliana v. United States, the constitutional climate lawsuit first filed on behalf of 21 young people in 2015. While a June ruling put Juliana on track to proceed to trial, the Biden administration continues its battle to quash the case.
E&E Newsreported Monday that "while Juliana targets a swath of government agencies," the new case, Genesis B. v. EPA, singles out one agency. Our Children's Trust senior staff attorney Andrea Rodgers explained that the firm hopes the focus will mean that the EPA "won't fight this case" in the way that the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations have targeted Juliana.
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