Newsflash: Rockweed Not a Fish
Climate change litigation continues in the headlines, this time with an Oregon federal court evaluating claims by 21 children that the federal government violated their constitutional right to a habitable environment. In...more
One might not expect that a climate-change case filed by a group of children could succeed. This week, a Montana state court decision in this summer’s hottest climate-focused case, Held v. State of Montana, finding in...more
Climate change litigation has become a global phenomenon, as scientists, agencies, and the general public increasingly associate wildfires, droughts, flooding, hurricanes, heat waves and other events with changing climate. ...more
In Chernaik v. Brown, the Oregon Supreme Court rejected claims by young climate activists that the public trust doctrine compelled government action to combat climate change. The lawsuit was part of a broader local and...more
On October 22, 2020, the Oregon Supreme Court rejected claims by youth climate activists seeking to expand the state’s public trust doctrine to address climate change. The court ruled that the state did not have an...more
Sea Level Rise is a critical issue facing public agencies and property owners throughout the U.S. In California alone, this phenomenon could impact thousands of residences and businesses, dozens of wastewater treatment...more
Fifteen youth from across the country, through their parents and litigation guardians, have joined forces in a lawsuit against the federal government over climate change, filed Friday in Federal Court in Vancouver. The case,...more
Years in the making, the first global report on the Environmental Rule of Law (ERL) was issued by the United Nations Environment Program and the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) in January 2019. The report is a...more
"You’re asking us to do a lot of new stuff, aren’t you?" Judge Andrew D. Hurwitz of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Juliana v. United States, June 4, 2019. It has been a busy month for climate change...more
The Situation: Proposed resolutions in Congress and an injunction request in a Ninth Circuit case both seek significant reductions in fossil fuel use throughout the economy. The Result: In the near term, it is easy to...more
The Juliana v. U.S. climate change litigation (better known as part of the Children’s Climate Crusade) is back in the spotlight. The case was filed in Oregon U.S. District Court in 2015 on behalf of future generations to...more
On November 27, 2018, a class action lawsuit was filed in Québec seeking relief against the federal government on the basis of its alleged inaction on climate change. The action, commenced by a group called ENvironnement...more
The U.S. Supreme Court Slows Children's Climate Lawsuit - For Now - "In the latest step of a fascinating bit of constitutional law called Atmospheric Trust Litigation, the Chief Justice halted the District Court trial...more
Climate change related cases are on the rise nationwide, just like sea water levels. In fact, according to a United Nations study released in May 2017, the U.S. has three times more climate change litigation cases than the...more
Last November, the District Court of Oregon denied the motion of the United States to dismiss claims that the United States had violated a public trust obligation it owes to US citizens to protect the atmosphere from climate...more
Late last week, Magistrate Judge Thomas Coffin concluded that the most recent public trust case, which seeks an injunction requiring the United States to take actions to reduce atmospheric CO2 concentrations to 350 parts per...more
Last week, a trial judge in Washington State, in Foster v. Washington Department of Ecology, ruled that the Public Trust Doctrine requires the State of Washington to address climate change more aggressively. Greenwire’s...more
The last frontier of citizen climate litigation has been state-based litigation alleging that states have a public trust obligation to mitigate climate change. As I have previously noted, I’m skeptical that these cases are...more
On June 11, the Oregon Court of Appeals held that two teens are entitled to a judicial declaration of whether there exists a “public trust” obligation in state officials to “protect the State’s atmosphere as well as the...more