
Left: Montana Supreme Court (KGW/YouTube). Right: Fossil fuels factory (KGW/YouTube).
The Montana Supreme Court has ruled that the state has a “fundamental constitutional right” to provide a “clean and healthful” environment — upholding a landmark 2023 climate ruling that said residents were having their rights violated on account of the state not having a “stable climate system that sustains human lives and liberties.”
The original case stemmed from a federal lawsuit filed in 2020 by 16 young Montanans between the ages of 7 and 23 who sued the state, local officials and a collection of agencies for not protecting them from “climate change” and all that comes with it.
At the trial last year, the youths successfully argued that climate change had drastically altered their lives and that Montana officials were doing nothing to “assess the greenhouse gas emissions and climate impacts of all future fossil fuel permits” in the state, according to Melissa Hornbein, attorney for the plaintiffs, who spoke to The Associated Press.