Our Children's Trust
Olson established the non-profit with advice and assistance from Mary Christina Wood, director of the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Program at the University of Oregon, who created the concept of "Atmospheric Trust Litigation" to take legal action to hold governments accountable for their role in causing climate change.
The law firm exclusively represents children in constitutional lawsuits to hold government entities accountable for actions causing and worsening climate change.
[5][6][9] Organized by Our Children's Trust, legal and administrative actions were filed against all 50 states and the federal government (Alec L. v. McCarthy[11]) in May 2011.
The lawsuit asserts that, by operating and investing in a national energy system that causes climate change, the government violated the youths' constitutional rights to life, liberty, property, equal protection of the law, as well as substantially impaired essential public trust resources.
Juliana v. United States gained attention in 2016 when U.S. District Court of Oregon Judge Ann Aiken found, for the first time, that there is a fundamental right “to a climate system capable of sustaining human life"[15] protected by the U.S. Constitution, allowing the case to proceed to trial.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments on June 4, 2019, in Portland, Oregon[17] in front of a three-judge panel from the Ninth Circuit consisting of Mary H. Murguia, Andrew D. Hurwitz and Josephine Staton (sitting by assignment), all of whom had been appointed to the bench by President Barack Obama.
Writing for the majority, Judge Hurwitz wrote that, while “a substantial evidentiary record documents that the federal government has long promoted fossil fuel use despite knowing that it can cause catastrophic climate change, and that failure to change existing policy may hasten an environmental apocalypse,” "it is beyond the power of an Article III court to order, design, supervise, or implement the plaintiffs' requested remedial plan.
As the opinions of their experts make plain, any effective plan would necessarily require a host of complex policy decisions entrusted, for better or worse, to the wisdom and discretion of the executive and legislative branches.
Later that month, 24 members of the U.S. Congress, experts in the fields of constitutional law, climate change, and public health, and several leading women's, children's, environmental, and human rights organizations filed 10 amicus curiae (friend of the court) briefs in support of the plaintiffs, urging that the en banc petition be granted.
During this time, Judge Aiken also scheduled oral arguments for the plaintiffs’ Motion for Leave to File Second Amended Complaint.
[34] On June 8, 2021, 17 Republican Attorneys General filed a motion to insert themselves as intervenors in the case and to object to any potential settlement between the Biden administration and the plaintiffs.
"[39] [38] The plaintiffs were supported by over two dozen of the world's pre-eminent climate scientists and supporters, including the late Dr. Frank Ackerman, Peter Erickson, Dr. Howard Frumkin, Dr. James Hansen, Dr. Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, Dr. Mark Jacobson, Dr. Akilah Jefferson (rebuttal), Dr. Susan Pacheco, Dr. Jerome Paulson, Dr. Eric Rignot, Dr. G. Philip Robertson, Dr. Steve Running, Catherine Smith, James "Gus" Speth, Nobel laureate Dr. Joseph Stiglitz, Dr. Kevin Trenberth, Dr. Lise Van Susteren, Dr. Karrie Walters (rebuttal), Dr. Harold Wanless, Dr. Jim Williams, and Andrea Wulf, all of whom prepared expert reports and were deposed in preparation for trial in 2018.
The case alleges that by affirmatively promoting a fossil fuel-driven energy system, Montana is violating the constitutional rights of the youth to a clean and healthful environment.
The lawsuit also claims that the state's fossil fuel energy system is contributing to the climate crisis and is degrading Montana's constitutionally protected public trust resources.
