Mengshin Lin/AP Photo
Kyle Ellison stands in front of a fallen tree in the aftermath of a series of wildfires, September 27, 2023, in Kula, Hawaii.
Thirteen young Hawaiians secured a monumental victory last week in a closely tracked case that strengthened children’s constitutional rights, documented transportation’s outsized role in producing planet-warming greenhouse gases, and underscored the youngest climate activists’ ability to upend business as usual when and where it counts: in the courts.
The Navahine v. Department of Transportation, State of Hawai‘i settlement marks the first time that state agencies have agreed to work alongside youth plaintiffs on climate change constitutional issues. Only Hawaii and a handful of other states—Illinois, Massachusetts, Montana, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island—grant specific environmental rights in their state constitutions.
In 1978, Hawaii added a provision to its constitution that states, “Each person has a right to a clean and healthful environment.” These rights take shape under the state’s environmental quality laws through mechanisms that include pollution controls, conservation monitoring, and natural resource improvements. But most importantly, these provisions also specify that “Any person may enforce this right against any party, public or private, through appropriate legal proceedings, subject to reasonable limitations and regulation as provided by law.”
Fast-forward nearly five decades, and in 2022, 13 young people, then aged 9 to 18, took the state transportation department to court to force it to move faster to protect natural resources that were disappearing in sometimes spectacular fashion. Both sides acknowledged that state officials, including Gov. Josh Green (D-HI) and Ed Sniffen, the state transportation director, were genuinely committed to climate goals and embracing clean energy. That, and the fact that Hawaii is a Democratic state known for embracing climate solutions, helped the two sides hammer out a settlement last week rather than move forward with a trial.
“Hawai‘i is warming at a rate that is four-and-a-half times greater than before 1959,” the year that the islands became a state, attorneys for the plaintiffs noted in the original case. Though the state had already committed to achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045, the attorneys also pointed out that Hawaii’s emissions were higher than most of the countries on the planet. That meant that the state would not be able to meet a target that was two decades away. The transportation sector is the highest producer of greenhouse gases in the United States; in Hawaii, the sector will likely produce 60 percent of those emissions before the end of the decade as the result of its prioritizing highway projects over public transportation, the attorneys noted.
Their briefs described the harms that would be suffered by youth, and outlined the negative consequences of water pollution, sea level rise, disruptions to traditional fishing practices, and harms to endangered sea animals such as green sea turtles and monk seals. They noted that coastal erosion would threaten neighborhoods, recreational beaches, roadways, and boat launches. Extreme rainfall, storms, and wildfires destroy and damage homes and family businesses—and ratchet up anxiety about the personal toll that climate damages would take.
In the settlement, the state agreed to devise plans to achieve net-zero emissions in the transportation sector by 2045 and establish the related frameworks to get to that goal. Other provisions require investments in transit, pedestrian, and bike infrastructure networks within five years, allocating $40 million to expand public electric-vehicle charging infrastructure in the next six years, and the creation of a volunteer youth advisory council in the department.
It was the second major case involving youth plaintiffs to introduce the concept of climate anxiety that young people suffer as their fears about the natural world grow. In 2023, Montana youth persevered in Held v. Montana, the country’s first climate constitutional law case, which introduced “climate anxiety” into American jurisprudence. (That decision reversed state laws that prohibited courts and agencies from considering the climate impacts of proposed fossil fuel projects.)
Like their Montana peers, the Hawaii youth plaintiffs documented how climate change has stoked their anxieties about having children and fears of the effects that catastrophic storms and other weather events will have on their lives—problems that previous generations never considered. One Navahine plaintiff recounted having experienced climate anxiety at an early age, noting she “would ask her mother if the world would still be here when she grew up.”
A state circuit court will monitor the settlement agreement between the youth plaintiffs and state officials and mediate any problems that arise.
Three other states have youth-led climate constitutional lawsuits pending, all backed by Our Children’s Trust. The national public-interest law firm works with young people on climate issues and assisted the Hawaii and Montana plaintiffs. Last month, Alaska youth filed a lawsuit to halt the controversial Alaska LNG, a liquefied natural gas megaproject that they fear would increase greenhouse gas emissions and accelerate climate change. Two other cases are pending in Utah and Virginia.
