Young climate activists in Wisconsin sue state over pro-fossil fuel policies | Wisconsin

Fifteen young climate defenders, aged eight to 17, continued the state of Wisconsin on Friday about its pro-fossil fuel policies.

The case offers state officials to “make the right step to decarbonize the Wisconsin” due to the “climate damage they have caused to young people,” said Kaarina, 17, who is the main seeker of the trial.

Kaarina grew up in the county of Vernon of the State along the Mississippi river. But in 2023, a large rock rolled in its backyard and spilled the trees.

Concerned about their safety, his family decided to move, but could not find an affordable house in the county which was sheltered from the floods, which the climate crisis made more common and more serious. They were forced to move at an hour north of the County of the butt.

Incidents like the one Kaarina has experienced more frequently in Wisconsin, because winter thaws and subsequent refrection cycles, called “freezing events”, increase due to global heating. If there was not the climate crisis based on fossil fuel, believes Kaarina, his fate could have been different, because the rock that plummeted towards his house would probably never have been dislodged.

“I had to get away from the childhood that I had planned to live in all my life and enjoy with my own children,” said Karina, who only uses her first name because she is a minor.

The “incredibly traumatic experience that changes life” helped her join the case, she said.

The new trial was filed by two non -profit law firms. The first, our children’s confidence won a historic victory of 2023 in a Montana case when a judge judged that state pro-fossil fuel policies have violated the rights of the state of young challenges. The second, defenders of the environment of the environment of the environment of the Midwest environment, won a July case concerning the law of Wisconsin public files.

In the new trial, the applicants specifically aim at two laws of the Wisconsin governing the State Commission of the State, which regulates public services. The regulator is prohibited from considering pollution of toxic air and the planet when it allows new fossil fuel power plants to be made, while another requires them to require public services to increase the amount of electricity they obtain from carbon -free sources.

“These laws set up a system where the Commission of the Public Service continues to approve power plants with fossil fuels and cannot provide more renewable energies,” said Nate Bellinger, lawyer for the supervision staff of our children’s trust.

Wisconsin is committed to a 100% carbon -free electricity by 2050, but still obtains three -quarters of its electricity from fossil fuels.

“State legislature and executive power have both set objectives and mandates to decarbonize the electricity sector,” said Bellinger. “These laws are hindering this.”

The complainants aim to have the two unconstitutional laws declared, which could ultimately lead to their reversal. The constitution of the State devotes a right to life, freedom and the pursuit of happiness, that the perpetuation of an oil sector based on oil and gas causes the trial.

“We have argued that pollution of fossil fuels and climatic impacts resulting from the approval of fossil fuel power plants harm the applicant’s health, their homes, their property and their security, and ultimately violating these constitutional rights to security and health,” said Bellinger.

The challengers also say that the invocation by the constitution of the doctrine of public confidence, which requires that certain natural resources be held in the government’s trust for the benefit of the public, should force Wisconsin to protect navigable waters for current and future generations, including the climate crisis.

The climatic impacts on Wisconsin rise, in particular not only the floods and the rapid freezing cycles, but also forest fires, the degradation of ecosystems and the increase in extreme heat. Each of them weighs on local young people, says the trial.

“I trained tennis during the summer, but I recently had to give up because of such extreme time and extreme climatic events that no longer worry me so that I am outside,” said Karina. “In addition, my family likes gardening on the farm of my grandparents nearby, and my summers in the gardens were interrupted due to such extreme heat which does not make sure outside, and the extreme weather events which ultimately wash the gardens in which we have put so much incredible work.”

The complainants also experienced asthma aggravated by the fire of fossil fuels, while the indigenous challengers have seen their access to traditional foods hampered by the degradation of ecosystems and warming waters, according to the trial.

“Our customers ask the court to defend their right to a habitable future,” said Tony Wilkin Gibart, executive director of the Midwest environment defenders. “This case is to know if they will inherit a future shaped by clean energy and a stable climate – or a overwhelmed by the pollution of fossil fuel, extreme weather events and increasing threats to their health and safety.”

The trial comes as the federal government has a multitude of environmental rules back and worked to stimulate fossil fuels. In May, our children’s trust continued the Trump administration for some of its anti-environmental decrees; The case will have a two -day evidence next month.

Donald Trump’s policies have made the climate action of young people even more important, especially at the level of the state, said Karina.

“There is a lot of dark things in our world at the moment, and especially in our federal government,” she said. “However, I don’t think it should crush the light in youth.”