Montana’s Supreme Court has ruled that the 16 youth who sued the state in a landmark climate change lawsuit have a constitutional right to “a clean and healthful environment.”The 6-1 decision upheld a lower court ruling in Held v. Montana, in which the plaintiffs argued that the state violated that right, enshrined in the state constitution in 1972, by limiting analysis of greenhouse gas emissions during environmental review of fossil fuel projects. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Mike McGrath rejected a spate of arguments against the plaintiffs — including that they lacked standing to bring the suit and that Montana’s contribution to climate change is negligible in a global context.
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“Plaintiffs showed at trial — without dispute — that climate change is harming Montana’s environmental life support system now and with increasing severity for the foreseeable future,” McGrath wrote in a 48-page opinion handed down December 18. Declining to regulate the state’s emissions because they are negligible would be like declining to regulate its mining pollution into Lake Koocanusa simply because 95 percent of the total pollution reaching the lake originates in Canada, he wrote.Lead plaintiff Rikki Held, the only plaintiff who was 18 when the suit was filed in 2020, hailed the court’s decision in a statement as “a victory not just for us, but for every young person whose future is threatened by climate change.” “We have been heard,” she added.The suit was brought by Our Children’s Trust, a nonprofit public interest law firm based in Eugene, Oregon. In a statement, lead attorney Nate Bellinger called the ruling “a victory for young people and for generations to come. The court said loud and clear: Montana’s Constitution does not grant the state a free pass to ignore climate change because others fail to act — this landmark decision underscores the state’s affirmative duty to lead by example.”Montana Governor Greg Gianforte denounced the ruling, arguing in a statement that it would lead to “perpetual lawsuits that will waste taxpayer dollars and drive up energy bills.” The Montana Department of Justice, which represented the state in the lawsuit, called the ruling “disappointi