The state of Montana is violating the rights of young people with policies that prohibit the state from considering climate change effects when it reviews coal mining, natural gas extraction, and other fossil fuel projects, a state judge ruled on Monday.
The decision by Judge Kathy Seeley in Helena marked a major victory in the first youth-led climate case to reach trial in the US and could set an important precedent for similar cases nationwide.
The 16 plaintiffs, aged 2-18, sued Montana in 2020 claiming the state's permitting of projects like coal and natural gas production exacerbated the climate crisis, despite a 1972 amendment to the Montana constitution requiring the state to protect and improve the environment.
In a June trial, the youths argued that despite its sparse population, Montana is responsible for an outsized share of global emissions. The state is a major producer of coal, oil, and gas that is shipped elsewhere and is also the home of pipelines and other infrastructure needed to ship those fuels.
The state argued that climate policy should not be set by courts and the plaintiffs hadn't proved that the global crisis could be attributed to Montana's relatively small emissions.
A spokesperson for the Montana attorney general's office called the ruling "absurd," and Seeley an "ideological judge who bent over backward to allow the case to move forward." The state plans on appealing, the spokesperson said.
Julia Olson, an attorney for Our Children's Trust, which represented the young people, called the decision a "huge win for Montana" and said similar decisions were likely to follow in different states.
American carbon emissions
The United States as a whole is one of the world's foremost producers of carbon emissions. In fact, according to Our World in Data, in total, the US has produced more CO2 emissions than any other country, having emitted roughly 400 billion tons since 1751. In terms of historic emissions, the United States is responsible for a quarter of historic global emissions.
Some critiques of climate actions taken by the US cite that, today, Chinese emissions far outpace those of the US. Indeed, according to Worldometer, Chinese emissions are more than double that of the US.
Still, the US is second in global emissions, and with the US at less than a quarter of the Chinese population, per capita, the US surpasses China.
Worldometer lists a number of countries that produce more per capita CO2. Many of these are oil-rich Gulf nations such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, the UAE, and Kuwait. Currently, the country with the highest per capita CO2 emissions based on this listing is Qatar, which produces emissions about 2.5 times the amount the US produces.
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