U.S. News

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.

“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.