In his opening statement, advocate Roger Sullivan evoked the multiplying impacts of global warming on the state’s youth.
These included “heat, drought, wildfires, air pollution, violent storms, loss of wildlife, watching glaciers melt”, with medical and psychological impacts disproportionately impacting the young.
Moreover, the state had pursued a ruinous energy policy, releasing 166 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually, he added – equivalent to the countries of Argentina, the Netherlands, or Pakistan.
The plaintiffs felt a sense of “betrayal”, said Sullivan, with some expressing reluctance to have their own children because they fear the world they would grow up in.
For its part, the state had repeatedly tried but failed to have the case tossed out over procedural issues.
In opening remarks, Montana Assistant Attorney General Michael Russell said the court “will hear lots of emotion, lots of assumptions, accusations … and notably fear about what the future may hold, including sweeping and dramatic assertions of doom that awaits us all”.
“Climate change is a global issue that effectively relegates Montana’s role to that of a spectator,” he added.
It comes as dozens of US jurisdictions are suing fossil fuel companies over climate impacts as well as disinformation campaigns about climate science.
CLIMATE SCIENCE ON TRIAL
The plaintiffs are represented by lawyers from Our Children’s Trust, the Western Environmental Law Center and Roger Sullivan with McGarvey Law.
In a preview of the way arguments might shape up during the rest of the trial, the prosecution called eminent climate scientist Steve Running, now a professor emeritus at the University of Montana, to explain at length the scientific case for man-made warming.
Starting from first principles of the greenhouse effect, he worked his way to specific impacts on Montana, including shorter winters extending wildfire season, and causing formerly camouflaged snowshoe hares to stand out in their increasingly snow-free surroundings.
The defence’s response, questioning the witness on how responsible Montana was, is a familiar line of attack, said Michael Burger, executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University.
Governments and the fossil fuel industry “tend to say that … nothing should be done until everybody agrees to do everything, and that no individual contribution can be so big as to matter”, he told AFP.
The case is being overseen by Judge Kathy Seeley in the state capital Helena, and will run until Jun 23.
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