In an article on the National Observer website, Marc Fawcett-Atkinson discusses the climate lawsuit in Canada that has now reached trial, and the courts are being asked to decide whether meaningful climate action is a constitutional obligation rather than simply a political choice. An earlier post on EiD on September 5th highlighted the legal challenge to Canada’s inadequate climate policies.
While this is a Canadian story, there is an international dimension. The case follows growing international recognition that governments have legal responsibilities to address climate change. The outcome could contribute to an evolving debate about whether climate targets are merely political aspirations or obligations that citizens can enforce through the courts.
Gen Z v. Canada: Youth climate lawsuit enters next round
Lawyers delivered the opening arguments Monday in a groundbreaking trial to determine whether the federal government is constitutionally required to reduce climate-wrecking carbon emissions. It is the first time such a lawsuit has gone to trial in Canada.
A crowd gathered outside the Federal Court in downtown Vancouver to cheer on 15 Gen Z plaintiffs as they entered the building for the four-week trial. The group were all between 10 and 18 years old when the lawsuit was first filed in 2019. Since then, Canada has backtracked on its climate goals, boosted oil and gas production, and suffered unprecedented wildfires, floods, droughts and storms.
In the case, La Rose v. His Majesty the King, the plaintiffs allege that the Canadian federal government is violating their constitutional right to life, liberty and security by failing to set targets for carbon emissions reductions stringent enough to meet the government’s own Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act.
That law, passed in 2021, requires the government to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. However, existing federal policies do not put Canada on a trajectory to meet that goal.
In their opening statement, federal lawyers argued that climate action is entirely political and falls outside the court’s purview. They claimed the government can’t be required to proactively protect the right to life, liberty and security because doing so would force it to tackle other social ills, such as the housing crisis.
Federal lawyers also argued that, because climate change is a global problem, reducing Canada’s emissions won’t make a meaningful difference. (Opponents argue this is a red herring). The government also claimed that Canada is already meeting its international climate commitments. (It isn’t, according to the Canadian Climate Institute.)
As of 2023, Canada has only reduced its emissions by nine per cent compared to 2005 levels — far less than the average 30 per cent reductions seen in other G7 countries.
According to the best-case scenario in the federal government’s own estimates, which it quietly released right before last Christmas, Canada will only be able to reduce its emissions by 28 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. This falls shy of the former Trudeau government’s goal to reduce emissions to between 40 and 45 per cent of 2005 levels by 2030. Late last year, the federal government under Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a new target to reduce emissions to between 45 and 50 per cent of 2005 levels by 2035.
Anna Johnston, a lawyer with West Coast Environmental Law who is working on the lawsuit as a counsel for the plaintiffs, said in an interview that the ongoing case “is really about whether or not the [net-zero] target and the plan are so inadequate that it amounts to a violation of the plaintiff’s rights to life, liberty, and security of the person.”
In addition to meeting the emissions reduction requirements enshrined in the Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act, the 15 youth plaintiffs also allege that, owing to the extraordinary severity of the climate crisis, the government must proactively reduce emissions to meet its constitutional obligations.
This is a novel area of constitutional law, Johnston said in an interview: if the judge accepts this argument, it would be the first time a court finds the federal government responsible for taking preemptive action to prevent a violation of Canadians’ right to life, liberty and security.
Last July, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) held that states have legal obligations to address climate change beyond existing climate regulations. While the ICJ’s ruling isn’t binding, it does provide a foundation in international law for the plaintiffs’ claim that Canada must protect them from the harms of climate change by aggressively reducing emissions.
The case comes amid Carney’s efforts to boost oil and gas production while slashing the government’s climate commitments.
Over the past 18 months, for instance, the federal government has cut the consumer carbon tax, weakened electricity emissions rules to facilitate gas-powered data centre development, exempted oil sands and gas generators from environmental assessments and designated the proposed Pacific Link pipeline between Alberta and BC as a project of national interest.
Those changes highlight the importance of the case, said Johnston.
“We have been in a climate action yo-yo for decades,” she said. “As soon as we think we are beginning to make progress, governments can just undo all of those efforts at the drop of a hat, as this prime minister has done.
“This case is all the more important,” Johnston adds, “because if we win, [climate action] won’t be up to the political will of politicians. It will be a legal requirement.”
The hearings are expected to end on Nov. 19.
External link
