Our Children’s Trust: State and Federal Suits Advocating Constitutional Right to Habitable Climate

Human Rights Research Center
1 day ago
11 min read

July 28, 2026

Introduction

Why are children particularly affected by the continued usage of greenhouse gas-emitting energy sources? Because current protective mechanisms are insufficient to meet the needs of our young people. The Convention on the Rights of the Child is a treaty adopted in 1990 that establishes a global framework to ensure the ongoing safety of children’s rights. All of the then 196 eligible state parties in the United Nations, except the United States, signed and ratified the treaty. UNICEF, the primary agency tasked with protecting children’s rights, has stated in its Children’s Climate Risk Index that “virtually all children’s rights may be affected by the climate crisis,” because of the interconnectedness of these rights and just how dramatically climate change stands to alter the living conditions and lived environments of our global youth.

These international systems provide a structure through which to address climate change, but the methods for putting them into practice must be designed by different organizations. The necessary regulations to compel a lowering of climate-warming greenhouse gases can be implemented by a range of entities. From local community efforts to implement a compost collection program to multinational commercial firms electrifying their delivery fleets, there is a wide array of options. But these restrictions are often self-imposed, undertaken for their own sake rather than to comply with a legislative requirement, especially in the private sector. The regulatory body responsible for issuing environmental guidelines and enforcing environmental legislation in the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has issued various recommendations over the last several decades on ways to address greenhouse gas levels, from regulating vehicle emissions to reducing the use of certain ozone-depleting refrigerants. This role makes the EPA the most important agency for administering the environmental laws of the United States, particularly those that concern global-warming emissions.

The authority of the EPA is based on two main sources. One, the Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1970 by President Richard Nixon, which recommended to Congress the consolidation of various interagency departments under a single central body. The other source is the body of laws that the EPA is responsible for implementing, which provide the tools the agency uses to carry out its legislative mandates. These laws grant the EPA authority, but do not specify the boundaries of that authority. Were Congress or the executive branch to decide that the EPA’s mandate should be reduced, as the first and second Trump administrations have, protections put in place by analyses and programs implemented by prior EPA departments will disappear.

State and Federal Constitutional Rights Cases

The fragility of these protections and the immediacy and threat of increasing harms to future generations caused a group of twenty-one youth plaintiffs, aged 8 to 19, in 2015 to bring a federal suit, Juliana v. United States, against executive branch officers and agencies for failing to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Julia Olson of Our Children’s Trust law firm, the firm representing the plaintiffs, argued that the many parties listed in the complaint, including the heads of several executive branch departments, were violating the plaintiffs’ constitutional right to life, liberty, and property, citing the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. The initial complaint contains individual examples of harm suffered by each of the twenty-one plaintiffs, outlining specific examples of ways the U.S. government was allegedly “enhancing the dangerous climate situation.” It also cites previous instances of the government acknowledging the national interest in maintaining national resources and environments for the benefit of present and future citizens, going as far back as 1965. The arguments Olson made, which convinced the U.S. District Court of Oregon Judge Ann Aiken to allow the case to proceed, called for constitutionally based protections of the climate. The case underwent many challenges, from the Obama and Trump administrations and energy companies. The Ninth Circuit Court, which had jurisdiction over the Oregon district court, found that the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring the original complaint, effectively ending any chance they had of winning even a partial victory in the case. The case was appealed to the United States Supreme Court, but the appeal was denied, as the Supreme Court refused to hear the case. This particular case, which aimed to find a constitutional right to a habitable climate, failed. But Julia Olson and her firm would go on to file other cases in different jurisdictions aimed at protecting future generations and reducing the harms of global warming.

Juliana received widespread coverage by the national and international press, and although the federal courts would eventually dismiss Juliana, Olson and Our Children’s Trust later brought another case with similar goals, but with different arguments. Held v. Montana was filed in Montana state court in 2020 on behalf of another group of young children, including a two-year-old child. Held differed from Juliana in that Olson argued that the defendants, the governor and various state-wide departments, were violating a provision of the Montana constitution that provided for “a clean and healthful environment in Montana for present and future generations.” The complaint argued that specific state policies were harming the young plaintiffs and infringing on their constitutional rights, and that the defendants “know that Youth Plaintiffs are living under dangerous climatic conditions that create an unreasonable risk of harm, they continue to act affirmatively to exacerbate the climate crisis.” Judge Kathy Seeley of the Lewis and Clark County District Court ruled in favor of Olson and the plaintiffs, finding that both the State Energy Policy and the Climate Change Exception in the Montana Environmental Policy Act, along with other regulatory prohibitions related to measuring greenhouse gases, violated the state constitution. Despite this finding, there were very few enforcement methods available, as the state permitting agency would not be required to change its permitting procedures, and the findings would not be binding on other states or businesses based in other states. Two years after the 2023 district court ruling, and one year after it had been upheld by the Montana Supreme Court, Olson filed a petition to have the Court intervene. She hoped to have the Court declare a series of new climate laws signed by Montana Governor Greg Gianforte, which were aimed at countering the effects of Held, as unconstitutional. The court unanimously dismissed the appeal, stating all challenges under Held must first be brought at the district court level. No further filings in the case have been made. Despite the limitations inherent in Held, it stands as a landmark constitutional rights case. It shows that courts are capable of implementing limitations, albeit narrow ones, on state action concerning climate change, and that bringing an action under a state constitution article or amendment is a viable method.

Last year, Our Children’s Trust filed a case in the Butte Division of the United States District Court of Montana targeting recent executive orders and energy policies from the Trump administration. Lighthiser v. Trump was also brought on behalf of a number of young clients, including some from both the Held and Juliana cases. The plaintiffs asked the court to declare the orders as unconstitutional, to block their implementation permanently, and to protect the constitutional rights as recognized in Montana and Hawai’i (where the state constitutions contain specific rights to protections against climate change). These executive orders would increase production of fossil fuels, at the expense of green alternatives, in violation of constitutional protections of life, liberty, and property. While Juliana used similar constitutional arguments, rather than attempting to completely reshape the scope of U.S. energy policy and systems, Lighthiser only sought to have the immediate executive orders and their effects declared unconstitutional. Despite this reduced request, it only took two days for the court to dismiss the case, citing the same reasoning as in Juliana, that the court did not possess the authority or capacity to do what the plaintiffs were asking. Such a finding would have required the court to make a determination about every single energy-related action by the administration since the publication of the orders, an unnecessarily burdensome task outside the court’s expertise. This ruling was upheld by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, meaning that the findings in the case cannot be used as precedent in later cases. So while the courts did not grant the plaintiffs’ request, the lower court did acknowledge something that no prior U.S. court had done, namely, the urgent status of the dangers of climate change to children. The district court judge wrote that the plaintiffs had presented “overwhelming evidence that the climate is changing at a staggering pace, and that this change stems from a rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide, caused by the production and burning of fossil fuels.” While the actions of this one district court judge cannot dictate how later courts will rule, they do show that courts are willing to acknowledge the harms of climate change, and indeed suggest that plaintiffs may, in certain circumstances, be entitled to relief. Unfortunately, we must still wait for that relief to be decided.

Conclusion

The successes achieved in Held and Lighthiser cannot be relied upon to serve as a model for national climate-change mitigation efforts. Only seven of the fifty US states have enacted constitutional provisions for protecting access to a clean environment and natural resources, with only New York’s amendment being passed this century. Globally, eleven of the 193 UN member states have dedicated constitutional ‘climate clauses.’ These provisions are generally quite broad, without any specific enforcement methods or emissions targets, and only Tunisia and Venezuela explicitly outline any sort of “environmental rights.” How effectively either of these two types of protective processes will function remains to be seen.

So, what path forward do our nation’s youth have for obtaining some sort of lasting climate justice? Last year, the International Court of Justice published its Advisory Opinion on Obligations of States in respect of Climate Change, which included obligations to be observed and a general approach to responsibility in case of violations, which could include monetary payments. The UN General Assembly voted on May 20 of this year to adopt a resolution backing the opinion, further cementing its importance and establishing a new precedent for legal recognition of climate accountability in international law. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in 2023 called on states to take action to “uphold children’s right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.” While these measures are not binding treaties or statutes, it is clear a growing consensus among UN members favors improving the protections for children against global warming.

Legal scholars who focus on the environment argue that United States state-constitution-based amendments might yet improve methods for protecting environmental rights, but feel that a significant shift in understanding the role of environmental rights would have to take place to fulfill their potential. The U.S. Constitution, they argue, does not offer any present avenues for pursuing climate justice, and so other paths must be found. The Amendments Project, which tracks all proposed amendments to the Constitution proposed in Congress, lists only twenty-seven proposed amendments meant to protect the environment. The most recent one, brought to committee in 2018 by Virginia Congressman Donald A. McEachin, would have enshrined the right to “clean air, pure water, and to the sustainable preservation” of the environment, and would have tasked Congress with passing legislation to ensure those rights. Measures such as Rep. McEachin’s would create the platform for environmental rights to have the force of law behind them needed to bridge the gulf between present protective mechanisms and future successes in battling climate change in the courts, and to overcome the reasoning for dismissing Juliana and Lighthiser. Perhaps nation- and state-based constitutional environmental rights and international legal obligations might yet yield resolutions to the dangers we face from climate change, and if they do, the group that stands to benefit the most is children.

Glossary

Action - the initiating of a proceeding in a court of justice by which one demands or enforces one's right.
Array - an imposing group; a large number.
Binding - imposing an obligation.
Burdensome - imposing or constituting a burden; oppressive.
Circuit Court - the intermediate appellate courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. They hear appeals in cases from the U.S. district courts and from certain federal administrative agencies.
Citing - to bring forward or call to another's attention, especially as an example, proof, or precedent.
Climate change - a change in global or regional climate patterns, in particular a change apparent from the mid to late 20th century onwards and attributed largely to the increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide produced by the use of fossil fuels.
Complaint - the initial pleading that starts a lawsuit and that sets forth the plaintiff's allegations against the defendant.
Comply - to conform, submit, or adapt (as to a regulation or to another's wishes) as required or requested.
Compost - a mixture that consists largely of decayed organic matter and is used for fertilizing and conditioning land.
Consensus - general agreement (as of opinion or fact) among a group of people or things.
Consolidation - the process of uniting; he quality or state of being united.
Defendant - a person or group against whom a criminal or civil action is brought; someone who is being sued or accused of committing a crime.
Dictate - to impose, pronounce, or specify authoritatively.
Electrifying - to equip for the use of electric power.
Enforcement methods - the proper execution of the process of ensuring compliance with laws, regulations, rules, and standards.
Enshrine - preserve (a right, tradition, or idea) in a form that ensures it will be protected and respected.
Entities - something that has separate and distinct existence and objective or conceptual reality.
Entitled - to furnish with proper grounds for seeking or claiming something.
EPA – an independent agency of the United States government tasked with environmental protection matters.
Executive order - a rule or order issued by the president to an executive branch of the government and having the force of law.
Federal suit - a legal dispute filed in a United States federal court rather than a state court.
Finding - the result of a judicial examination or inquiry, especially into matters of fact.
Greenhouse gas - a gas that contributes to the greenhouse effect by absorbing infrared radiation, e.g., carbon dioxide and chlorofluorocarbons.
Harm - physical or mental damage.
Implementation - an act or instance of implementing something: the process of making something active or effective.
Insufficient - not sufficient: inadequate.
Interagency - occurring between or involving two or more agencies.
Interconnectedness - having a mutual or reciprocal relation.
International Court of Justice - a judicial court of the United Nations, formed in 1945, that meets at The Hague.
Intervene - to come in or between by way of hindrance or modification.
Legislative mandate - an official order or commission to do something by law.
Multinational - (of a business organization) operating in several countries.
Obligations - something (such as a formal contract, a promise, or the demands of conscience or custom) that obligates one to a course of action.
Ozone - a layer in the earth's stratosphere at an altitude of about 6.2 miles (10 km) containing a high concentration of ozone, which absorbs most of the ultraviolet radiation reaching the earth from the sun.
Parties - a person or group taking one side of a question, dispute, or contest.
Petition - a formal written request made to an authority or organized body (such as a court).
Plaintiff - a person who brings a legal action.
Precedent - something done or said that may serve as an example or rule to authorize or justify a subsequent act of the same or an analogous kind.
Provision - a condition, requirement, or item specified in a legal instrument.
Regulations - an authoritative rule dealing with details or procedure.
Regulatory body - a government authority that is responsible for exercising autonomous jurisdiction over some area of activity.
Relief - legal remedy or redress.
Resolution - a formal expression of opinion, will, or intent voted by an official body or assembled group.
Self-imposed - imposed by oneself: voluntarily assumed.
Standing - the status of being qualified to assert or enforce rights in a judicial forum (such as a court) arising from a sufficient and protectable interest in the outcome of a legal case due to suffering or being threatened with actual injury as a result of the actions of the other party.
State court - a state court is a court of law with jurisdiction over disputes with some connection to a U.S. state.
Statutes - a law enacted by the legislative branch of a government.
Sufficient - enough to meet the needs of a situation or a proposed end.
Treaty - a contract in writing between two or more political authorities (such as states or sovereigns) formally signed by representatives duly authorized and usually ratified by the lawmaking authority of the state.
UN General Assembly - one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as its main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ.
UNICEF - an agency of the United Nations established in 1946 to help governments (especially in developing countries) improve the health and education of children and their mothers.
United Nations - an international organization of countries set up in 1945, in succession to the League of Nations, to promote international peace, security, and cooperation.
US District Court - the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each of the 94 federal judicial districts. Each district covers one U.S. state or a portion of a state.
US Supreme Court - the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases.
Vehicle emissions - result of the combustion of fuels such as natural gas, gasoline (petrol), diesel fuel, fuel oil, biodiesel blends, or coal.
Viable - capable of working, functioning, or developing adequately.