It brings hope, says Lucina, 17, one of 13 young Hawaiian climate activists  who won an historic settlement with Hawa’ii’s department of transportation over its use of fossil fuels.

“For many of us, it’s kind of been our whole life we’re seeing our beaches falling into the water, and our coral reefs disappearing,” she says.

Keiki o ka ‘āina (children of the land) in Hawai‘i turned to the courts to assert their rights to a safe and healthy climate and ask their government to embrace its kuleana (responsibility) as a trustee for future generations by decarbonizing Hawai‘i’s transportation system.

The June 2022 lawsuit, Navahine F v Hawaii Department of Transportation, claimed the state’s fuel transportation policies violate their state constitutional rights by creating “untenable levels of greenhouse gas emissions” and thus harming the plaintiffs’ ability to “live healthful lives in Hawaii now and into the future”. The state’s constitution guarantees the right to a clean and healthful environment, the litigation argued.

It was organized by Our Children’s Trust, a nonprofit organization, and Earthjustice, an environmental law firm. Last year a group in Montana, also organized by Our Children’s Trust, won their case against that state with a similar argument to the one presented in Hawaii.

By prioritizing projects like highway expansion instead of efforts to electrify transit and promote walking and biking, the complaint says, the state created “untenable levels of greenhouse gas emissions”.

The settlement will force the state’s department of transportation to move more aggressively towards a zero-emission transportation system.

Hawaii officials will release a roadmap “to fully decarbonize the state’s transportation systems, taking all actions necessary to achieve zero emissions no later than 2045 for ground transportation, sea and inter-island air transportation”, said attorney Andrea Rodgers.

While Hawaii has long embraced a progressive climate change agenda, with 2045 as a target year for decarbonization, the new settlement is “as big a deal as everyone said it is”, said Denise Antolini, an emeritus professor of law at the University of Hawaii Law School.

“It’s written down, it’s enforceable, and that makes all in the difference in the world between a promise and actual implementation.”

The plaintiffs, most of them Indigenous, alleged that by contributing to the climate crisis, the state hastened the “decline and disappearance of Hawaii’s natural and cultural heritage”. When the case was filed, the plantiffs were between the ages of nine and 18..

Navahine is a 16-year-old Native Hawaiian whose family has been farming the land “for 10 generations”. Drought, flooding and sea level rise were all affecting her family’s crops, she said. “Seeing the effects, how we were struggling to make any money for our farm, kind of pushed me to this case,” she said.

Officials said the legal settlement brings together activists with all three branches of the state’s government to focus on meeting climate change goals, including mobilizing the judicial branch.

The court will oversee the settlement agreement through 2045 or until the state reaches its zero emission goals, Rodgers said.

In 2015, Hawaii became the first US state to require its electric utilities to zero out its power sector emissions by 2045. The state legislature has also passed a goal of decarbonizing the transportation sector. And Hawaii’s 2050 sustainability plan calls to make all state vehicles carbon free by 2035.

The cooperative nature of the legal agreement, which promises to include young people in advisory roles, and brings together government officials, lawyers, policy makers and teenagers, is appropriate for “an island community like Hawaii” where people know “we’re in the boat together”, said Antolini.

Sources:

Youth activists win ‘unprecedented’ climate settlement in Hawaii Guardian, Jun. 21 2024

Hawaii Settles With Young Plaintiffs in Climate Case New York Times, Jun 21 2024

Cover image: Our Childrens Trust website.