Our Children’s Trust is powering young people activating the courts to recognize their rights in the context of their greatest threat: the climate crisis. We’re growing a movement, backed by the best available science, to activate all three branches of government to uphold and protect these most fundamental rights. We employ a holistic and trauma-informed approach that helps equip young people with the supportive environment, skills, and resources to cope with their experienced climate harms and interactions with the justice system. ourchildrenstrust.org
Vision
We believe that young people deserve to be happy and safe today and in the future. We use our legal and scientific expertise so they can tell their stories.
Our Children’s Trust is the only not-for-profit law firm exclusively representing children in holding their governments accountable to their generation, and future generations, for ending the reign of fossil fuels and the climate crisis. We work in courts (state, national, regional, and international) to present evidence of how its young clients are disproportionately harmed by climate change, seeking judicially enforceable and systemic remedies supported by science and designed to protect the fundamental rights of children. We partner with world-renowned experts who understand how to transition to a carbon-free and resilient future that puts children first.
This legal work – grounded in constitutional, public trust, and human rights law, and the laws of nature – aims to stop government actions that contribute to the worsening climate crisis and violate rights that depend fundamentally on a habitable planet (rights to life, liberty, property, personal security, equality). To solve the most urgent challenge facing the world today, climate change, we have three overarching goals.
One: to establish the constitutional standard to a safe and stable climate under state and federal constitutions. We seek legally binding judicial declarations that will return atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations to below 350 parts per million (ppm), now known as the 350ppm standard, by the year 2100: the scientific prescription for a safe climate defined by the planetary boundaries for Earth.
Two: to ensure that children’s voices are heard. We work to give agency to children around the world to have the opportunity to take the stand in a court of law to tell a judge how climate change is harming them, their health, their homes, and their lives. We aim to give each young person the opportunity to take the oath to tell the truth, tell their story, and really be heard for the first time by those in power.
Three: to transform the law. With the precedents we establish, we will create binding and enduring court decisions on constitutional rights. We will transform the law within the legal academy as we train and mentor the next generation of lawyers in litigating constitutional, climate and children’s issues through law clerk and volunteer programs. We are also invited to provide clinical education at leading academic institutions such as Yale Law School and Georgetown Law, and legal scholarship and presentations that showcase legal experience and expertise. Our work will be completed when there is universal recognition of children’s climate rights around the world and children’s fundamental rights to life on this planet are protected.
History
Our Children’s Trust was founded in 2010 premised on the truth that our courts are both vital to a vibrant democracy and empowered to save our planet for our children’s sake. Without a stable climate system that is judicially recognized and protected as a fundamental human right, every natural resource we rely upon to exercise our basic rights to home, health, and life itself is under threat. For 60 years, governments, and the systems they have built, have knowingly fueled the climate crisis, despite clear scientific warnings to transition away from fossil fuels and with majority public support for climate action.
Our Children’s Trust represents young people in court who are demanding that their governments enforce their rights to a livable climate. Our youth plaintiffs have experienced harm from rising temperatures, increased wildfires, evacuation and flooding of their homes, and loss of spiritual and cultural practices. In 2011, Our Children’s Trust made history by filing a wave of coordinated legal actions on behalf of youth in 50 states, and several countries, to establish legal recognition and protection of climate rights. To date, we have represented hundreds of impacted youth in litigating 25 cases in the United States, seven cases globally and supported dozens more. Through this work, including the landmark federal lawsuit Juliana v. United States, which is covered in the Youth v. Gov documentary on Netflix, has pioneered the climate rights movement, empowered youth leaders, and propelled youth-led climate litigation around the world.
Each legal action strategically builds on the legal groundwork OCT has developed, with an ultimate goal of universal recognition and enforcement by courts of the fundamental climate right.
Activities
Litigation. Our Children’s Trust represents youth plaintiffs free of charge through all litigation phases – investigation, pleadings, discovery, pre-trial proceedings, trial, settlement, judgement, and appeal. In addition, Our Children’s Trust supports litigation in cases that align with its mission by filing amicus curiae briefs to advance children’s fundamental rights and best possible climate and medical science. We provide pro bono services to legal teams working globally.
Our Children’s Trust works in federal and state courts, advancing cases in jurisdictions with the worst climate impacts, the deepest investments in climate polluting infrastructure, and with laws that provide for the protection of natural resources and constitutional rights.
Community of Practice. Our Children’s Trust builds collective learning among individuals and organizations dedicated to advancing children’s rights and the right to a livable climate. This community includes academics, climate scientists, educators, judges, medical practitioners, researchers, and young people concerned about the climate crisis.
Public Education. Our Children’s Trust educates the public through campaigns; workshops, seminars, and public events; publications, reports and films; community outreach; advocacy and lobbying; educational partnerships; earned and social media engagement; web-based resources; and storytelling and personal testimonies.
Leadership Development. Through both structured programs and practical experiences, youth plaintiffs, law clerks and volunteer interns develop their leadership skills, competencies, and attributes. Joining a plaintiff cohort creates social connections and provides trauma informed care.
Audiences Served
Our Children’s Trust’s impact can be visualized through concentric circles of audiences creating a wide network of legal, policy, and community-driven transformation. Each case is a vehicle for change, starting with youth whose lives have been impacted by climate chaos and who serve as the plaintiffs. Their narrative leadership ripples out through their case via earned media, social platforms, education programs, and publications.
Our youth clients The primary audience is youth clients who are experiencing the impact of the climate crisis. Youth plaintiffs receive direct trauma-informed legal representation and media training. Plaintiffs in each case form a supportive cohort—support that can only come from peers undertaking a shared experience.
Our communities and partners In turn, youth plaintiffs impact their friends, immediate and extended family, having intergenerational conversations about the crisis that start at the dinner table and extend into the halls of schools, churches, and community-driven organizations. This dialogue is further amplified by partner organizations in climate justice including Indigenous communities, nonprofits, coalitions, school clubs, and community-based groups.
Schools and value aligned industries Our Children’s Trust’s methodology, approach, and assertions are presented in classrooms and conference rooms to educate and enable collaborative movement building. Schools at all levels (primary, secondary, higher education – including law school) and industry-specific groups (medical professionals, climate scientists, legal scholars, etc.) serve as spaces for advancing scientific exploration, promoting civic engagement, nurturing leadership development, and deepening collaborative initiatives. Our youth plaintiffs and team actively foster these platforms, partnerships, and communities to deepen this collective ecosystem. Many of our advisors, local experts, future youth plaintiffs, and allies emerge from these communities.
Local, state-level, federal, and global governing bodies Through their cases, youth participate in civic activities with true power, despite age-related limitations, such as the voting age, and contribute to meaningful and tangible change on climate policy. These efforts focus on governments and agencies that hold the power to implement systematic changes to stop and reverse the climate crisis ensuring children’s rights to a livable climate.
Judiciary and legal community Our precedent-setting cases have changed how constitutional law, civil procedure, and environmental rights are understood in the academy and in law schools. They reach legal community lawyers, academics, scientists, and human rights defenders.
Our shared planet Ultimately, the largest audience is everyone who calls Earth home, especially two billion children worldwide. Our Children’s Trust’s work is done in service of this generation and future generations.
Successful Impact Climate litigation on behalf of children sets precedent for climate action all over the globe, going beyond the jurisdictions in which the cases were brought, empowering, and driving similar action in other countries.
2012 Bonser-Lain v. Texas Commission on Environmental Quality The first court to rule that the public trust doctrine is embedded in the Texas Constitution and protects all natural resources that are essential for survival including air.
2013 Butler v. Brewer This decision recognizes the power and duty of the judiciary to declare public trust rights, and that the public trust doctrine is capable of extending to the atmosphere and climate.
2015 Foster v. Washington Department of Ecology This litigation on behalf of youth in Washington State secured the nation’s first court order mandating an agency to cap and regulate carbon dioxide emissions.
2015 Sanders-Reed v. Martinez The New Mexico Court of Appeals builds upon the legal precedent that the public trust doctrine can be used to support youth’s efforts to protect their constitutional climate rights.
2016 Juliana v. United States For the first time ever, a court declares a constitutionally protected, climate-specific right, inspiring courts in other jurisdictions around the world to similarly recognize such a right.
2020 Chernaik v. Brown The Oregon Supreme Court recognizes its power and duty to decide youth’s constitutional claims on the evidence, with a groundbreaking dissenting opinion paving the way for judicial recognition of climate rights.
2021 Aji P. v. State of Washington A dissenting opinion from two Washington Supreme Court justices builds additional judicial support for recognition of climate rights in a case brought by youth to protect their rights to life, liberty, and equality.
2022 Sagoonick v. State of Alaska A first in Alaska history, justices, writing in dissent, recognized that there is a right to a livable climate protected by their Constitution.
2022 Chapter 50-5: Florida Renewable Energy Goals Florida granted a petition for rulemaking from 200+ youth to set a target of 100% of the state’s electricity to be generated from clean renewable energy by 2050.
2023 Held v. State of Montana Groundbreaking ruling in the first constitutional climate trial where youth and experts testified. Judge ruled that use and promotion of fossil fuels while ignoring climate change violates youth’s constitutional rights to a clean and healthful environment.
2023 La Rose v. His Majesty the King Unanimous decision on Federal Court of Appeal reopens door to first constitutional climate trial stating that “climate change is having a dramatic, rapidly unfolding effect on all Canadians and on northern and Indigenous communities in particular.”
2024 Navahine v. Hawaii Department of Transportation Landmark settlement agreement in which defendants will take all actions necessary to achieve zero emissions no later than 2045 for ground, sea, and interisland air transportation.
To learn more, read our 2023 Impact Report.
Recommendations for Replication
- Advocates and educators develop curricula, workshops, and programs based on Our Children’s Trust cases. For example, Journeys in Film created a curriculum guide for students in civics, US government, and environmental science in concert with the documentary Youth v Gov available on Netflix which features the 21 youth plaintiffs in Juliana v. United States. Elizabeth Rusch’s The 21: The True Story of the Youth Who Sued the U.S. Government Over Climate Change tells the story of how the Juliana plaintiffs are working to save the planet by holding the government accountable through a multifaceted and approachable book that features extensive backmatter such as a timeline, glossary, and additional resources. Our latest victory of the settlement in the Navahine v. the Hawaiʻi Department of Transportation is currently being developed into educational materials in partnership with local educators that can be further adapted for the broader public.
- Employ well-being, mindful, and trauma-informed approaches into organization efforts. Our Children’s Trust works with the Alvarado Consulting & Treatment Group to integrate resources and best practices both internally as an organization and externally with youth clients and their families. We share this approach with partners, educators, and other leaders working in social justice movements. We know from youth clients that these resources and practices become essential to both their advocacy and personal lives. For three decades The Alvarado Group has developed employee well-being and trauma-informed care programs for global corporations, state and county agencies, faith-based, first responder and educational groups internationally. To learn more, you can visit alvaradoconsultinggroup.com.
- Amplify our cases, stories, and all aspects of our work to educate and empower young people and their communities. Visit our website to explore our efforts, including a newly added section dedicated to the Held v. State of Montana case, featuring expert reports, legal documents, video testimonies, and other valuable learning resources. If you’re interested in partnering with us, replicating our efforts, or collaborating, please contact our team.
Contact Information
Emily Goetz, Chief Communications Officer
Elizabeth Dickinson, Chief Development Officer
alliances@ourchildrenstrust.org
541-375-0158