Summary of holding
A court will dismiss a claim for lack of Article III standing to pursue a constitutional claim if it does not demonstrate (1) injury-in-fact, (2) causation, and (3) redressability. Although the Ninth Circuit found that the plaintiffs met their burdens regarding the first two elements, they ultimately lacked standing because it was unlikely that their claims would be redressable by a favorable judicial decision.
An injury must be concrete and particularized, not conjectural or hypothetical. Plaintiffs can meet this burden as at least one plaintiff suffered concrete harm. The court considered various plaintiffs’ injury claims in this case and found that at least some met this requirement. One plaintiff moved from their home because of water scarcity, separating them from their relatives on a Navajo Reservation. Another asserted that they suffered diminished property values that resulted from recurring flooding. The court recognized both as concrete injuries. The court rejected the government’s arguments that the injuries were not particularized because “climate change affects everyone.” [1168] The number of people affected does not matter when the plaintiffs can otherwise meet the injury-in-fact element.
“Causation can be established ‘even if there are multiple links in the chain,’ as long as the chain is not ‘hypothetical or tenuous.’” [1169] The court found that the plaintiffs’ claims that their injuries were tied to fossil fuel emissions were not tenuous. The plaintiffs submitted evidence regarding the United States’ share of global emissions, that federal regulations are a substantial contributing factor, and that about 25% of fossil fuels extracted in the US come from federal lands. The government argued that the claims were too attenuated because they relied on the independent actions of third parties. The court rejected this defense because the plaintiffs were attacking a “host of federal policies, from subsidies to drilling permits, spanning ‘over 50 years,’ and direct actions by the government.” [1169] This created a genuine factual dispute at the least and, therefore, a reason the plaintiffs’ claims met their burden to survive summary judgment.
To demonstrate redressability, “the plaintiffs must show that the relief they seek is both (1) substantially likely to redress their injuries; and (2) within the district court’s power to award. Redress need not be guaranteed, but it must be more than ‘merely speculative.’” [1170] The primary relief that the plaintiffs sought was an injunction requiring the government to effectively halt its contribution to fossil fuel production. They would also require the government to prepare a plan to draw down harmful emissions, which would be subject to judicial approval. The court found that the plaintiffs did not meet either prong of redressability in this case.
The plaintiffs could not establish that an injunction would be enough to stop climate change or even ameliorate their injuries. The plaintiffs did not present convincing evidence that their relief would effectively halt carbon dioxide levels from growing and conceded that much more drastic action is required. Further, because the plaintiffs asserted a substantive constitutional right, they were not entitled to the relaxed standard afforded in some procedural cases addressing climate change injuries.
Even assuming the plaintiffs could have met the first prong of redressability, the relief requested was far outside the court’s power to award. The plaintiffs’ relief asked the court to usurp the power of the Executive and Legislative branches substantially in matters that require “a host of complex policy decisions.” [1171] In particular, the requirement that the judiciary passes judgment on the sufficiency of the government’s proposed plans asks that the court substitute their judgment for the political branches’. Additionally, such supervision is not bound temporally and would likely persist for decades to measure compliance and results adequately. The court concluded that “[b]ecause ‘it is axiomatic that the Constitution contemplates that democracy is the appropriate process for change,’ some questions—even those existential in nature—are the province of the political branches.” [1173]
Potential takeaways for future climate migration litigation
- Although the plaintiffs ultimately had their claims dismissed, it is important that the court acknowledged they met their burden to show injury-in-fact and causation. The court clearly stated that the government could not rely on a defense that climate change affects everyone to counter the particularized injury element. Further, the court allowed the plaintiffs’ causation argument to stand despite the government’s protests that it was too attenuated. This is important because it provides that causation can be met even if there are multiple links in the chain. The government cannot shift the entire burden of causation to third parties when plaintiffs present evidence of widespread administrative failure to regulate those third parties as a substantial factor in their injuries.
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