A day after wildfires ripped through a historic town on Maui, killing at least 111 people, a Hawaiian court gave the green light for a landmark environmental case brought by 14 indigenous children to move forward to a full trial next summer.
The children, who are as young as ten years old, allege that the Hawaiian Department of Transport (HDOT) is violating their constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment. They believe the department ignores the state’s goal of achieving a zero-emissions economy by 2045.
”The transportation system is the next frontier in terms of really getting a handle on greenhouse gas pollution and affecting the kind of transformative systemic change that we need to avert climate disaster,” said Isaac Moriwake, a managing attorney for the environmental legal non-profit Earth Justice and lead attorney in the trial against the HDOT.
Greenhouse gases from transportation account for about 29% of all carbon emissions in the United States, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
The case is part of an international climate movement led by Our Children’s Trust, a nonprofit public interest law firm based in Oregon. It is part of what was once seen as an insurmountable fight against government support for coal, oil, and gas burning that has warmed the planet and caused unpredictable and deadly disasters.
The organization has current cases in Canada, India, Mexico, Pakistan, and Uganda. However, it has also supported dozens of cases in the United States. Last week, it was handed one of its highest-profile wins when 16 children in Montana proved that their home state violated their constitutional rights by failing to consider climate change when approving fossil fuel projects.
Only a handful of states offer such constitutional protections to their citizens, and are often referred to as green amendments.
But as the United States and other major governments set ambitious climate goals, environmental legal cases are apparently…
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