Twenty-one young plaintiffs, aged 10-20 years, have taken the US government to court over climate change. Supported by US-based Our Children's Trust, a non-profit, the plaintiffs said that the US government's actions are causing climate change and have violated their generation's constitutional rights to life, liberty and property. The government has also failed to protect public resources by burning fossil fuels.
The plaintiffs accused the Trump administration and its predecessors of years of wrongdoings and lack of action in handling climate change. They also want an order compelling Washington to devise a plan that will fix this problem and reverse it.
Children, they say, are the future of the world. But youngsters in America took up the task of fixing the present and questioned the actions of the government that may impact their future.
The lawsuit was first filed in 2015, during the administration of former president Barack Obama, but went to trial under President Donald Trump, who withdrew from the global Paris Agreement on climate change.
One of the plaintiffs, nine-year-old Levi Draheim, who lives in low-lying, coastal Florida, says about his president, “It’s scary having someone in the White House who doesn’t believe in climate change.”
It is great to see that citizens are taking climate change seriously and raising questions against governments and fossil fuel companies, who are emitting carbon and causing global warming.
Reporter cum Sub-Editor, Gobar Times (2017-2018)