Hawaiʻi reached a landmark settlement agreement last month on climate change. The state Department of Transportation agreed to roll out a new plan to reduce carbon emissions after facing a lawsuit from a group of young plaintiffs.
The outcome of the case was widely lauded by Gov. Josh Green, state officials and local environmental activists.
Across the Pacific, 19-year-old Sahara Hope Valentine also celebrated the settlement. They have spent the last nine years embroiled in another climate lawsuit out of Oregon, Juliana v. the United States.
Sahara was just 11 years old when they signed on to be one of the young plaintiffs in the Juliana case, which alleged that the federal government had violated their constitutional rights by promoting the export and production of fossil fuels.
Just a month before the parties settled the Navahine case, the Juliana plaintiffs faced a tough blow. A panel of judges dismissed the case, saying the issue was not one the courts could decide, and effectively brought the case to a standstill.
"It's been so long, and we've been essentially shot down by the court so many times, and it can be really difficult to maintain hope throughout that," Valentine said.
But the news of a settlement in the Navahine case encouraged Valentine.
“It was a big inspiration and left me with a lot of hope about a similar thing hopefully happening to us in our lawsuit,” Valentine said.
Hawaiʻi is the first state to settle a climate lawsuit brought on by young people. But 17-year-old Mesina D. from Oʻahu, one of the Navahine plaintiffs, said the outcome of the case was far from a given. Initially, counsel for the state tried to have the case dismissed.
“I thought it was going to be the beginning of a million dismissals. I had some merit in thinking that, because of seeing what's happened to the Juliana case,” Mesina said.
Mesina said she and her fellow plaintiffs were committed to keep fighting, no matter how long the road ahead may be. Then, just two years after the case was filed, the parties reached an agreement.
"Next thing we knew, we had settled with the state," Mesina said.
Sahara and Mesina are among more than 150 plaintiffs represented by the law firm Our Children’s Trust in cases across the country. One of those cases, Held v. Montana, was the first of the bunch to go to trial last summer.
A group of sixteen young people argued in the Held case that their right to a “clean and healthful environment,” protected under Montana’s state constitution, was being violated by Montana’s issuing of permits for fossil fuel projects. Last August, a Montana judge ruled in favor of the plaintiffs.
One of the plaintiffs, 21-year-old Claire Vlases, was studying abroad in New Zealand at the time of the ruling.
“I woke up to hear the news, and I got out of bed and just felt like I was walking on air,” Vlases said. “It felt like for the first time, maybe ever, I was capable of creating real change.”
That elation was tempered somewhat when Montana continued to fight the case tooth and nail, appealing it to the state Supreme Court.
In contrast to the defendants’ response to the Held case, Vlases said she was amazed to see how Hawaiʻi officials and young people were able to come together to work on the same team.
"I honestly am really inspired by Hawaiʻi’s government’s actions of actually listening to the young plaintiffs and finding common ground, rather than having to continually fight them, to continually appeal decisions to the highest of courts," Vlases said. "I wish my state government could recognize that they do have a role to play."
Charlotte M., a 15-year-old and one of the Navahine plaintiffs, remembered learning about the Held ruling last summer from a newspaper clipping that her mother sent her while she was at boarding school in Australia.
"I was really happy, because I thought, if they're doing amazing work over there, what's stopping us here in Hawaiʻi?" Charlotte said.
Less than a year later, Charlotte would be celebrating a major victory in her own case — one that redefined what’s possible for youth-led climate lawsuits.
