Virginia Supreme Court rejects youth climate case – Young activists had sought to make case that energy policies are hurting them by worsening the effects of climate change’

CLIMATEWIRE | The Virginia Supreme Court has declined to revive a youth-led lawsuit that claimed the state’s permitting of fossil fuels violates the constitutional rights of young people by worsening the effects of climate change.

In a brief order issued Tuesday, the court said it was “of the opinion” that the Virginia Court of Appeals had made “no reversible error” when it dismissed Layla H. v. Commonwealth of Virginia. The appeals court in 2024 had found that the youth had not demonstrated injuries that were particular to them.

The high court held oral arguments in the case Feb. 11 and appeared skeptical the challengers could prevail.

Nate Bellinger, lead attorney for the young people, said in a statement that the decision shows a “troubling misunderstanding of the law and the serious constitutional and public trust issues at hand.”

Bellinger, an attorney with the Oregon-based law firm Our Children’s Trust, called the appeals court ruling — which the state Supreme Court upheld — an “abdication of the judiciary’s duty to act as a check on the political branches, which has been bedrock constitutional law in Virginia for nearly 250 years.”

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