Youth plaintiffs filed a lawsuit in Alaska Superior Court asserting that statutory provisions requiring the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation to advance and develop the Alaska Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Project violate the plaintiffs’ public trust and substantive due process rights under the Alaska Constitution. The plaintiffs alleged that Alaska was “already in a state of climate disruption,” and that the Alaska LNG Project’s intended 30 years of operations “would ensure continuing and substantially elevated levels of climate pollution for decades, locking in increasing and worsening harms to Youth Plaintiffs,” who would be “uniquely vulnerable to and disproportionately injured by the climate harms” from the project. They alleged that “[e]very additional ton of climate pollution” would further disrupt the climate system and harm the plaintiffs. Alleged harms included temperature increases, heatwaves, and other heat-related changes; thawing permafrost; changing precipitation patterns, extreme weather events, and drought; loss of sea, river, and lake ice; ocean acidification; melting glaciers and sea level rise; and increasingly frequent and severe wildfires and smoke. The plaintiffs seek a declaratory judgment that the provisions violate their public trust rights to equal access to public trust resources and to sustained yield of public trust resources free from substantial impairment, as well as declarations that they have a fundamental right to a climate system that sustains human life, liberty, and dignity and that the statutory provisions violate that right. In addition, the plaintiffs ask the court to enjoin the defendants from taking further actions to advance or develop the Alaska LNG Project. 

Lawsuit asserting that laws requiring development of a liquefied natural gas project in Alaska violated the youth plaintiffs' rights under the Alaska Constitution.

Sagoonick v. State

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Youth Plaintiffs Filed Lawsuit to Block Alaska LNG Project

Filed

United States of America

Alaska

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An aim to achieve a quantifiable outcome within a given time-frame, set by an institution such as a national government.

Policy instruments are techniques or tools used by governing authorities to promote certain policies in order to achieve predetermined goals. Put simply, instruments are how a government tries to achieve its goals, with this taxonomy being focused on national policy instruments.

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Renewable energy means all forms of energy produced from renewable sources in a sustainable manner.

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Molecules in the atmosphere that play a key role in the greenhouse effect by trapping heat radiating from Earth’s surface.

Area of the economy in which actors engage in identical or related activities.

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Zoning and spatial planning are both methods for guiding the distribution of people and activities in a space, and are regulatory restriction.

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Actions or measures to adapt freshwater systems to climate change.

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Coastal zone and marine-related actions and measures to adapt and increase resilience to climate change

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Hot temperature extremes are daily maximum temperatures  that were exceeded on average once in a decade or once in 50 years, and includes heatwaves.

The release of heat-trapping gases, primarily from human activities such as burning fossil fuels, agriculture and industry.

A long-lived, colourless gas, chiefly emitted from fossil fuel combustion, deforestation and cement production.

A potent, short-lived greehouse gas, largely released from livestock, fossil fuel extraction and waste management.

Actions to reduce emissions in energy generation and supply.

Risks to the ecosystem health of the marine environment, including ocean warming, ocean acidification, and ocean deoxygenation, harming biodiversity, species health, ecosystem services, and coastal community livelihoods.

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Air pollution involves harmful contaminants in the air, affecting both indoor and outdoor environments. It can lead to health issues like respiratory diseases and heart problems, and climate impacts such as global warming. Pollutants can damage plants, trees, habitats, and water bodies like rivers and lakes.

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Oil is a combustible liquid fossil fuel composed mainly of hydrocarbons, occurring as crude oil and refined into petroleum products such as petrol, diesel and kerosene.

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People with different national or cultural traditions from the dominant population

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People whose health, both mental and physical, makes them more vulnerable to the effects of climate change

woman and genders outside of the gender binary

Any compulsory, unrequited payment to the government levied on corporations or individuals. This can be for environmental reasons, such as introducing a Carbon tax to set a price that emitters must pay for the greenhouse gases they emit.

Households employing domestic workers, for activities like cooking, cleaning and subsistence farming, for their own use.

The activities of industries that transforms raw materials into finished goods through industrial processes.

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Climate change can have a range of impacts on technological system. Extreme weather events can cause infrastructure failures like power outages or damage to roads and bridges, as well as the impacts from waste following natural disasters. Human activities also cause technological impacts, such as the risks posed by oil spillage and leaks.

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Climate change impacts our society by disrupting the natural, economic and social systems we depend on. Physical hazards and underlying vulnerabilities can lead to increased resource competition for food and water, which can heighten the risk of conflict.

Slow onset events evolve gradually from incremental changes over many years or from increased frequency or intensity of recurring events. As defined in the Cancun Adaptation Framework (2010), slow onset events include risks and impacts from rising temperatures, desertification, biodiversity loss, land and forest degradation, glacial retreat, ocean acidification, sea level rise, and salinization.

Heavy precipitation refers to any form of weather where substances fall from the sky, including rain, snow, sleet, or hail.

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Geohazards are adverse geological phenomenon's that are capable of causing widespread damage or loss to property, life and the environment, such as earthquakes, volcano eruptions and tsunamis. Climate change can increase the frequency and severity of some geohazards, such as landslides, and soil erosion.

Youth Plaintiffs Filed Lawsuit to Block Alaska LNG Project

Policy instrument

Risk

Impacted group

Renewable energy

Fossil fuel

Greenhouse gas

Economic sector

Adaptation/resilience

Finance