On that Saturday, August 20, 2022, it was quite hot in Montana. Thermometers marked highs of 110 Fahrenheit – but it wasn’t just the sun warming the Big Sky Country. As many as 2,000 fires were reported throughout the summer, incinerating 21,349 acres of land.
Teenager Rikki Held and 15 other young locals were so impressed by the resulting devastation that they came up with one of those bold, youth-inspired ideas to make sure that things like that couldn’t happen again. They consequently sued the state of Montana for failing to protect them from climate change, citing the rising frequency of fires and other effects of global warming on the state.
They claim that Montana’s procedures for environmental assessment as well as its energy policy are unconstitutional (the latter was subsequently overturned). Plaintiffs also contend that the state is breaching its own rules by favoring the production and use of widespread fossil fuels against the warnings of decades of study.
The Montana Constitution, which provides its residents the right to a clean and healthy environment, is the key argument in the case. Youth-led legal actions about climate change have been brought in every state in the United States during the past ten years. However, Held v. Montana, which bears Rikki’s name, was the first case permitted to go to trial when its procedures got underway.
A fifth-generation rancher from Powder River County, Ms Held comes from one of the state’s most conservative regions, where just 47% of the population think that humans are responsible for climate change (5% less than the national average).
Rikki and the other plaintiffs appeared Monday before the First Judicial District Court in Helena. During the opening statements, Michael Russell, an assistant attorney general for Montana, claimed that the state had limited control over greenhouse gas emissions, asserting that it is impossible to link the injuries claimed by Held and the other plaintiffs to individual state officials’ deeds.
“Montana’s emissions are simply too minuscule to make any difference,” Russell said. “Climate change is a global issue that effectively relegates Montana’s role to that of a spectator.”
Russell also said that the plaintiffs, who are supported by a prominent Oregon law firm, had overstated the case’s significance since it was “far more boring than the plaintiffs would make it out to be.”
The focus of the lawsuit has narrowed in the three years since it was filed to whether the Environmental Policy Act of Montana, which mandates that state agencies weigh resource development against environmental protection, is unconstitutional because it exempts officials from taking into account greenhouse gas emissions and their effects on the climate.
A successful judgement, nonetheless, may open the door for more rulings throughout affirming that public entities have a responsibility to safeguard individuals from climate change.
