Rikki Held grew up on her family’s ranch in Montana, watching the land transform amid the climate crisis. The Powder River, which runs through the property, has sometimes dried up during drought, leaving crops and livestock without water. At other points, rapid snowmelt and heavy rains have caused flooding and eroded riverbanks, making the land difficult to use.
Two years ago, the 24-year-old and a group of other young people won a groundbreaking legal victory, intended to prevent those impacts from worsening. In August 2023, a judge ruled in favour of plaintiffs in Held v Montana, in which 16 young people accused the state of violating their constitutional rights by promoting planet-warming fossil fuels. The state’s supreme court affirmed the judge’s findings late last year, but plaintiffs say lawmakers have since passed new laws that violate that ruling. So last week, they filed a new petition calling on the supreme court to enforce their earlier win, one of several youth-led constitutional climate lawsuits filed in the US this year.
“We have to keep working on cases like these,” Held said. More on this eventful year in youth climate litigation, after this week’s headlines.
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Represented by the nonprofit law firm Our Children’s Trust, US youth brought other accountability-focused climate suits in 2025. In May, 22 young Americans sued the Trump administration, alleging that federal officials were violating their constitutional rights with their pro-fossil fuel policies, including moves to declare a “national energy emergency” and “unleash American energy”, and an order aimed at “reinvigorating” the domestic production of coal – the dirtiest and most expensive fossil fuel. A judge dismissed the lawsuit this autumn, but the group quickly appealed.
Eva Lighthiser, the 19-year-old named plaintiff in the federal court case, is also involved in the Montana litigation. Its earlier success “reminded me just how important democracy and the power of young voices are,” she said.
“With that in mind, [suing] this current administration was something I approached with confidence in our judicial system and the US constitution,” said Lighthiser.
Young climate plaintiffs also filed cases this year against Wisconsin and Utah. In September, some also submitted a petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, claiming the US was violating international law by perpetuating a fossil fuel-based energy system.
The lawsuits face a challenging path. Although youth climate plaintiffs have notched some victories, they have also seen setbacks. Earlier this year, Juliana v United States – perhaps the best-known US youth climate lawsuit, which argued the US was harming youth by perpetuating a fossil-based energy system – ended after wending its way through the court for 10 years, when the supreme court declined to hear an appeal.
But the plaintiffs remain undeterred.
“Young people are inheriting an uncertain future where climate change is only going to continue to worsen, and it feels essential for us to use our voices and take action in [any] way we can,” said Lighthiser.
“When Held was initially filed in 2020, I was too young to vote. As young people, taking to the courts can be our only viable option in regard to participating in democracy.”
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