July 24, 2024: Youth File Response

The youth plaintiffs filed their opposition to the state's motion to dismiss, urging the court to deny the motion and allow the case to proceed to trial. The plaintiffs' brief underscores the profound harms Alaska’s youth are already experiencing due to climate pollution from fossil fuel development and illustrates that the Alaska LNG Project, which would significantly escalate climate pollution for decades, would cause them further, additional, and mounting harms. The youth’s brief highlights that in two previous youth-led constitutional climate cases led by Our Children’s Trust, Kanuk v. State, Department of Natural Resources and Sagoonick v. State I, the Alaska Supreme Court instructed that a challenge to a specific project, like the Alaska LNG Project, would allow Alaska’s courts to decide the rights of Alaska’s youth under the State Constitution.