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WASHINGTON – On Friday, the Supreme Court refused to halt the lawsuit as part of a lawsuit filed by 21 youths seeking to compel the federal government to take action to combat climate change.
The unsigned court order indicates that the Trump administration has raised substantive issues about the plaintiffs' legal theories and the radical redress they are seeking. But the court said it would not intercede, ordering the plaintiffs to remit the case to a court of appeal.
Julia Olson, the plaintiffs' senior counsel, said in a statement: "The young people of our country today have won an important Supreme Court decision, which shows that even the most powerful government in the world must follow the rules and procedure of democracy. "
Judges Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch stated that they would have acceded to the request of the administration to block the trial until the Supreme Court had the opportunity to. 39; examine the case.
At a previous meeting in July, the Supreme Court had also expressed some skepticism about the legal theory of the case, which rested in part on what the plaintiffs regard as their constitutional right to a "system". climate that can sustain human life. "
The case was filed in 2015, while President Barack Obama was in office. He sought to hold the federal government accountable for his role in creating a "dangerous climate system," and he asked a federal judge to order the federal agencies to fix the problem.
Justice Ann Aiken of the Federal District Court in Eugene, Oregon, rejected the government's attempts to close the case. So far, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has declined the intervention. The first phase of the trial must last 50 days.
"Their alleged injuries," he writes, "stem from the cumulative effects of CO2 emissions from all sources of the world over the decades; Any additions to the global atmosphere that could somehow be attributed to the government over the time required to resolve the pending petition are clearly de minimis. "
In response, the complainants stated that "such a reason is contrary to the values of our country and the objectives of the government." That would be tantamount to leaving children in dangerous hostels, the complainants said, based on the theory that they had been living there for years. .
Mr. Francisco stated that the complainants could not demonstrate the type of direct and particular harm that would give them standing. The injuries they suffered, he wrote, "imply all the diffuse effects of a widespread phenomenon on a world scale, identical to those felt by any other person in their communities, in the United States or around the world ".
The complainants replied that the damage they would suffer was direct and serious.
"When a child experiences climate-induced flooding where he sleeps, the increased incidence of asthma attacks caused by forest fires and climate-induced smoke conditions in areas where there is exercise, dead coral reefs due to the presence of oceans too hot and the rise of the seas perpetually attacks the barrier island where lives l? child, so that he now evacuates regularly and suffers floods on the roads of his child, at home and at school, "said their memoir," these injuries are not generalized grievances ".
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