Washington youth not backing down on climate change case

Washington youth are waiting. They’ve waited for adults to take action on climate change, and after losing patience with them, they moved the issue to the courts. Now they are waiting again for a King County Superior Court judge to make her decision.

“We’re bringing this litigation to the court because the Department of Ecology has not done enough to do their job,” Aji Piper said.

Piper, 16, is among eight Washington youth who brought the case.

“They are violating our rights under the public trust doctrine, which is in our constitution – both the U.S. constitution and our state constitution,” he said. “It gets really frustrating and it feels like we’re not being listened to, and it feels like we’re running out of time.”

The eight young petitioners recently asked Judge Hollis Hill to find the state’s Department of Ecology in contempt for failing to protect Washington youth and future generations from the affects of climate change. The petitioners are between the ages of 12 and 16. Judge Hill said Tuesday that she needed more time to come to her decision.

ABC News reports that the efforts to take on climate change in the court goes beyond Washington youth. It is a nation-wide effort, led by Oregon-based Our Children’s Trust. In Washington, the youth case was originally filed in 2014, and aimed to get the courts to force the DOE to come up with better rules and regulations to protect future generations from climate change. They asked the court to step in and order the department to find better regulations to limit carbon dioxide emissions in the state. The court ordered DOE in November 2015 and April 2016 to come up with updated rules. The department already was in the process of updating air pollution regulations under order of Governor Jay Inslee.

“It’s the point where you feel this daunting thing looming, and you are fighting it with everything you have,” Piper said. “But one person can’t fight all of this, so you need your government have the people fight this with you, if people aren’t going to listen.”

“And if the government is not going to listen to you, as far as the legislative branch, then we need to get the judiciary branch,” he said. “That’s why I’m in this court case. This is how I am going to be heard, and this is how people are going to start listening. Even if we aren’t successful in this case, it holds a lot of weight and turns a lot of heads.”

Washington youth and climate change

In September, the Department of Ecology approved new rules that cap emissions on the state’s largest polluters — 19 companies in the state must reduce emissions by 1.7 percent every year. But they aren’t good enough for the young petitioners who say the new regulations don’t go far enough to protect them. They argue the new rules don’t meet the standard ordered by the court. It led them to ask the court to hold the department in contempt. But their call for contempt has been received as challenging the department’s rule. They will have to clarify what exactly they are asking for if not to challenge the new regulations.

“We are going to have to work to help the judge understand what the remedy is, besides challenging the rule,” Piper said. “We are not trying to challenge (Ecology’s) rule. But the Department of Ecology feels we are challenging the rules they’ve made. We are simply asking for an overarching plan to be made. Not a law that forces thing to happen, but a plan that shows how things must happen.”

Piper said that people get caught up in a lot of other modern issues to fight for – many of them social issues. He doesn’t discredit those causes.

“But climate change is the only issue with a deadline,” he said. “It’s the only issue that when that deadline is reached, it’s like a doomsday calling. We never want to hit that end-of-the-line with climate change. Other issues have been going on so long, and we’ve been fighting them, and they’ve slowly been changing – issues like racism, sexism, and gender inequality. They are slowly changing, and getting better … with climate change, if we don’t change, the world as we know it is going to end.”

“I don’t mean somebody’s personal sphere, I mean the whole world as we know it won’t be the same again,” Piper said.

In Oregon this November, a judge decided in favor of a similar case brought by 21 youth plaintiffs. That case is against the United States and the fossil fuel industry. A U.S. District Court judge denied arguments to dismiss the case, moving it forward.

“Companies, and corporations and business will challenge this because it restricts their ability to make profits, because it restricts pollution which their profits are dependent on,” Piper said. “I think that it’s only a matter of time before we, up here in Washington, follow suit with Oregon. Oregon at the moment has had more success and that may lead to success in Washington.”

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