Courting Solutions to the Climate Crisis — In All the Wrong Places?
| The problem deserves a solution on a more vast scale than can be supplied by a district judge or jury in a public nuisance case[i]. If ever there was a case that called out for judicial intervention and a court to answer the call, it is Juliana v. US and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. And yet, after four and a half years of filings, a divided three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals told the 21 young plaintiffs in Juliana, they didn’t have standing to pursue their case. All three judges on the panel were ap-pointed to the federal bench by President Obama. Over the past two decades, the number of climate-related law cases has been on the rise. Whyis not difficult to discern. The failure of political leaders—particularly at the federal level—to heed the growing body of scientific evidence that demands aggressive action to stem the rise of global temperatures has forced climate activists to seek judicial intervention. The courts are proving difficult to convince, however, for reasons having nothing to do with the science. In fact, the opposite is true. Most of the judges who have heard Juliana and other recent cases, as described below, have expressed a solid belief in the causes and consequences of Earth’s warming and the urgent need to defend against it. Juliana is one of a group of novel theory law cases. The suits vary in the redress requested and the legal strategies employed. For example, cases like Juliana look to expand the public trust doctrine and make a habitable environment a protected right under the due process clauses of the US Constitution. |
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