Youth-Led Climate Suit Wraps Up After a Decade of Government Opposition

The landmark youth-led climate lawsuit Juliana v. United States has come to a close without ever seeing a trial. The case, filed in 2015 by Our Children’s Trust on behalf of 21 youth plaintiffs, faced 10 years of opposition from the federal government because it argued that the U.S. government violated young people’s constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property through its unwavering support of the fossil fuel industry. Ultimately, the Department of Justice successfully pushed back against the plaintiffs’ efforts. On March 24, the Supreme Court denied the plaintiff’s petition for review, upholding the lower court’s 2024 decision to throw out the case.

“It’s the end of the case, but it’s not the end of the movement,” said Michael Burger, the executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School. Burger told Prism that Juliana stood at the “forefront of a global phenomenon of youth-led climate litigation,” preceding other lawsuits based on state constitutions that would see success, including Held v. Montana and Navahine v. Hawai’i. In 2023, a Montana judge ruled that the state must consider climate impacts when permitting new fossil fuel projects, and in 2024, Hawai’i reached an agreement to decarbonize its transportation sector.

Three presidential administrations — Obama, Trump, and Biden — challenged Juliana, but never on the substance of its claims. Administrations argued that courts weren’t the place to write policy, that the government would be irreparably harmed from a trial, and that there are no explicit provisions in the U.S. Constitution that guard against impacts of climate change. Lawyers for the plaintiffs disagreed, basing the suit on what’s known as the Public Trust Doctrine, which requires that governments protect natural resources for the enjoyment and use of the public. The case sought declaratory relief from the court, which is a statement addressing the constitutionality of a policy that could then trigger policy changes from legislative bodies and federal and state agencies. A well-known example of declaratory judgment that led to broad changes is Brown v. Board of Education.

The government’s successful repudiation of Juliana raises questions about the efficacy of pursuing climate action through the judiciary, especially when the defendant is the government itself rather than corporations. But Burger told Prism that there’s much to be gleaned from Juliana.

“I think that this case has served as a model of a type of lawsuit that seeks to hold national or state governments accountable and to increase the ambition of government climate commitments by relying on legal claims and narratives grounded in youth, in climate science, in the impacts of climate change,” Burger said.

Earlier this week, Prism’s environmental justice reporter ray levy uyeda spoke with Juliana plaintiff Sahara Valentine via video call about the significance of Juliana v. United States, what they’ve learned from a decade of climate organizing in the legal realm, and what’s next.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

ray levy uyeda: Juliana has come to a close after more than a decade of moving through the courts. It received more opposition from the federal government than any other case in which the U.S. was a defendant. How are you feeling?

Sahara Valentine: Only 20 other people can really relate to me on this level, and there is a lot to grieve. I’m 20 years old, so it’s been literally half my life that I’ve been a part of this lawsuit; the other plaintiffs and the attorneys really feel like family to me. When I was young, I just began this journey with Juliana. I remember hearing the older plaintiffs, like Xiuhtezcatl [Roske-Martinez] and Kelsey [Cascadia Rose Juliana], and they were just so eloquent. I was in awe of them. It’s hard because this lawsuit is what brought us together initially, and now with the end of the lawsuit, there will be a big shift in what my relationships with these people will look like. Right now, I’m grieving the interconnectedness of my life with these people. I haven’t even gotten to the point where I’ve started reflecting on how the actual lawsuit is over — what we’ve been working toward and what all of us have spent so much time thinking and talking about, doing interviews and traveling [for]. It was definitely not for nothing. We created something beautiful and inspired a lot of other lawsuits. But Juliana coming to a close without even getting to trial — I haven’t even started thinking about that yet.

levy uyeda: Why do you think the federal government worked so hard to stop this case?

Valentine: It seems pretty obvious to me. They would not have put in that time, money, or energy into ending it if they didn’t think that we would win. I think that the U.S. federal government was nervous about how important our case was, how much it could change things, and how much it pointed out the flaws that are inside our government that need to be changed.

levy uyeda: You joined the lawsuit when you were 10 years old; now you’re almost a senior in college. How did involvement in the case shape your perspective? Knowing the way it ended, would you have done anything differently?

Valentine: No, I wouldn’t because we did everything possible. The case [being denied cert] didn’t happen because there was a mistake or because something was overlooked; we just kept running into these walls. There are some personal things that come up. For instance, because I was only 10 when I joined, I was really nervous about public speaking, so I didn’t do many interviews. It’s easy to say to myself, “If I had been more vocal or brought more attention to it, maybe more people would have known about it.” But I really think that a lot of people know about it. We had local, national, and global support. There was nothing else we could have done. We gave all that we had.

levy uyeda: You grew up in Eugene, Oregon. You witnessed a number of environmental changes, many of which were attributable to climate change. Climate change impacts continue to accelerate at a rapid rate. What have you noticed?

Valentine: Eugene is beautiful. We’re close to the mountains and the ocean. My grandparents live about 30 minutes away. My dad grew up there, right by a river. Over my lifetime, I’ve seen the riverbank erode. Rivers naturally shift, but there’s other factors that risk the health of the river, like fluctuation of water levels or higher water temperatures, which can lead to algal blooms. Summers continue to become so incredibly hot, which has led to the cancellation of events. Of course, there are forest fires, which forces people to evacuate. Not to mention that inhaling smoke is not healthy for anyone.

I think it’s important to say that while I’ve been impacted, for sure, I have not gotten nearly the worst of it. I’m still in a city, I’m fortunate to be housed, and a lot of people are facing the brunt of climate change. Ten years is honestly a really short amount of time. It’s going to be interesting and scary to see how things continue to shift. As I’m getting older, my friends and I are having a lot more conversations about the future and about children. I don’t know how I would navigate bringing a child into the world with the intense climate change we’re facing.

levy uyeda: What’s next for you?

Valentine: I’m majoring in environmental studies and Spanish at Western Washington University. I work at our campus’ Recycle Center, which I love. I think I’ll move forward by continuing to organize locally. As I get older, I’m really appreciating more of the interconnectedness between movements. When I organize for Palestine, that is connected to environmental work. When I organize for prison abolition, that is very connected to environmental work. I want to continue to explore those connections and navigate being in my 20s without having the lawsuit as a fundamental part of my life. Particularly, when the lawsuit was active, there were certain things that we couldn’t do. For instance, we couldn’t put ourselves in a situation where we might be arrested because we wouldn’t want to impact the case. That made a lot of sense and the risk was throwing the case — not just for myself, but multiple other people. Now, I have that ability to use my body and to put myself on the line more. I’m thinking about and navigating how I’m able to risk more now because things don’t hinge on the case.

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