A Montana judge ruled Monday in favor of young people who accused their state of violating their constitutional right to a “clean and healthy environment” by favoring the fossil fuel industry. This is a historic ruling in the first major US climate change lawsuit. AFP reports.

A judge has ruled unconstitutional a Montana law that bars local governments from considering the effects of greenhouse gas emissions on the climate when granting permits to fossil fuel companies.

That provision of the law is therefore struck down, Judge Kathy Seeley ruled.

“Plaintiffs have a fundamental constitutional right to a clean and healthy environment, which includes climate,” she wrote in her more than 100-page decision.

One of the features of this trial is that the sixteen plaintiffs, who did not seek financial compensation, range in age from 5 to 22 years old.

They argue that the dangerous effects of fossil fuel use and the climate crisis are particularly harmful to them, as well as to children and youth.

“For the first time in US history, a court has found on the merits that the government has violated children’s constitutional rights through laws and actions that promote fossil fuel use and ignore climate change,” Julia Olson, executive director, said in a press release. Our Children’s Fund, one of the three associations supporting the plaintiffs.

The trial was held in mid-June in Helena, the capital of Montana. Then they told how the health, well-being or finances of their families had been undermined.

This is the first time a US state constitution has been used in court to attack a local government on climate issues.

The decision could have significant implications for future cases. Many similar lawsuits were filed across the country, but many were dismissed.

The Montana plaintiffs had an advantage: a section of the local constitution clearly states that “the state and every person shall maintain and improve a clean and healthy environment in Montana for present and future generations.”

Montana has just over a million people, but CO2 emissions are about the same as Argentina.

“Thank you to these brave young people who won a huge victory against climate change today,” US Senator Bernie Sanders said on social media.

The state of Montana wants to appeal the “absurd” decision

16 plaintiffs sued Montana in 2020, alleging that the state’s permitting of projects such as coal and natural gas mining exacerbated the climate crisis, despite a 1972 amendment to Montana’s constitution that required the state to protect and improve the environment.

In a June lawsuit, the young people argued that despite its small population, Montana is responsible for a huge share of global emissions.

The state argued that climate policy should not be set by the courts, and the plaintiffs failed to prove that the global crisis can be explained by Montana’s relatively low emissions, Reuters reported.

A spokesman for the Montana attorney general’s office called the decision “absurd” and called Seeley “an ideological judge who bent on moving the case forward.” The state plans to appeal, the spokesman said.