Listen to this articleThe U.S government will face a lawsuit from a group of children. The group is suing the U.S government for failing in protecting them against climate change. It could force the U.S authorities to rapidly de-carbonize the American economy. The lawsuit blames successive administrations of knowing the science of climate change but not taking enough action to protect U.S children from its damages. The case was first filed in 2015 but initially dismissed by most legal observers as hopeless. But a federal judge, Ann Aiken stunned the government in 2016 by refusing its attempt to end the case.
A professor of environmental law at UCLA, Ann Carlson said this was a major development as no court had ever previously upheld the idea the government had a duty to provide its citizens a stable and safe environment. She informed CBS News, “That’s a big stretch for a court. There’s no constitutional provision that says the environment should be protected”. She added, “I think that Judge Aiken actually does a very good job of saying it’s not radical to ask the government to protect the health, and the lives and the property of this current generation of kids”.
Judge Aiken said in her ruling, “Exercising my ‘reasoned judgment,’ I have no doubt that the right to a climate system capable of sustaining human life is fundamental to a free and ordered society”. Trump administration has repeatedly tried to have the case thrown out, forcing the legal battle all the way to the Supreme Court. It was last year rule unanimously in the favor of the 21 young plaintiffs and against the government. The leading plaintiff, Kelsey Juliana is now a student at the University of Oregon and said her direct experience of wildfires in Oregon showed how dangerous unchecked climate change would be. She said, “This case is everything. This is the climate case. We have everything to lose if we don’t act on climate change right now, my generation and all the generations to come”.
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