California children are suing the U.S. government over its failure to reduce pollution, the latest in a series of lawsuits filed by young people around the world concerned about climate change.
Aged 8 to 17, these young people claim that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) “intentionally allows the emission of dangerous pollutants that contribute to greenhouse gases from fossil fuels that it (the EPA) regulates, thereby harming the health and well-being of children,” said Our Children’s Trust, a nonprofit law firm.
The plaintiffs say they are discriminated against by the EPA as children whose economic prospects and futures are sacrificed on the altar of environmental pollution.
The complaint, filed December 10, asks the federal courts to declare that the EPA violated the Constitution’s right to equality before the law, as well as the right to life.
One of the complainants, whose first name is Genesis, explains for example that she lives in a house without air conditioning and that with the temperatures rising, the situation becomes intolerable.
She has to keep “her home’s windows open in summer, exposing her to ash from wildfires and more pollen, aggravating her allergies and causing frequent runny noses,” Our Children’s Trust said on its website. website.
Another, Maya, suffers from respiratory problems and severe headaches that the complaint says are due to the increasing number of wildfires, preventing her from “participating in soccer competitions at the level she would like.” “.
In addition to the EPA, the complaint targets the head of the agency Michael Reagan as well as the federal government.
On the other side of the Atlantic, the European Court of Human Rights began examining in September a complaint filed by six young Portuguese people against 32 countries which they accuse of not making the necessary efforts to limit global warming. climatic.
And in August, a court in Montana, in the northwest of the United States, ruled in favor of a group of young people who accused the state of violating their rights to live in an unpolluted environment.
