Good News from Montana in Climate Change Mitigation …. Or Is It?

From the Daily Montanan:

The Montana Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a district court ruling in the nation’s first constitutional climate change trial, affirming that the youth plaintiffs have a “fundamental constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment” while revoking two Montana statutes.

The 70-page decision, authored by Chief Justice Mike McGrath, comes 16 months after Lewis and Clark District Court Judge Kathy Seeley ruled in the landmark Held v. Montana lawsuit, explicitly stating that the state’s greenhouse gas emissions are “proven to be a substantial factor in causing climate impacts to Montana’s environment, and harm and injury to the youth plaintiffs.” Seeley’s decision also rolled back two laws enacted by the 2023 legislature that changed the Montana Environmental Policy Act.

The state immediately appealed the decision to the Montana Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments in the appeal in July. The court found in a 6-to-1 decision that Montana’s constitutional guarantee of a “clean and healthful environment” includes a stable climate system, “which is clearly within the object and true principles of the Framers inclusion of the right.”

“Plaintiffs showed at trial—without dispute—that climate change is harming Montana’s environmental life support system now and with increasing severity for the foreseeable future,” the order states. “Plaintiffs showed that climate change does impact the clear, unpolluted air of the Bob Marshall wilderness; it does impact the availability of clear water and clear air in the Bull Mountains; and it does exacerbate the wildfire stench in Missoula, along with the rest of the State.”

The six-justice majority found the law which limited analysis of greenhouse gas emissions during environmental reviews violates the Montana Constitution’s “right to a clean and healthful environment,” and enjoined the state from acting on it.

All this sounds great, but what does it mean in practice?  OK, analyses of greenhouse gas emissions are admissible in environmental reviews.  But what actions can be taken to force the reductions of these pollutants?