On Oct. 25, 2019, the activist Greta Thunberg headlined a rally for roughly 10,000 people in Vancouver, B.C.
The event coincided with the filing of a lawsuit against the Canadian government by a group of young people who claimed that the country was not moving fast enough to transition away from fossil fuels, and was thus violating the rights of Canadian citizens to life, liberty and security.
Yesterday, exactly seven years and one day after that rally, the lawsuit went to trial.
The case, La Rose v. His Majesty the King, is one of the few climate lawsuits against a government to make it to trial, and the first youth-led federal case in Canada to be heard.
It is also the first major case against a country to be heard since a landmark decision last year by the International Court of Justice, which ruled that nations had a legal obligation to protect people from the “urgent and existential threat” of climate change.
The trial will take place in two phases and stretch into next year. But in the rapidly expanding universe of climate litigation, La Rose v. His Majesty is being closely watched as a potentially pivotal case.
“What makes this case so remarkable is not just the constitutional questions at stake, but the possibility of a court holding a national government accountable for its role in perpetuating the climate crisis and requiring meaningful action to protect young people’s fundamental rights,” said Mat dos Santos, co-executive director of Our Children’s Trust, one of the legal groups supporting the plaintiffs.
“The implications of a victory could extend far beyond Canada, particularly as courts around the world grapple with governments’ legal obligations in the face of accelerating climate change,” he added.
Backsliding
For many years, Canada was seen as a climate leader. The previous prime minister, Justin Trudeau, supported a carbon tax and caps on planet-warming emissions.
But since the current prime minister, Mark Carney, took over in 2025, Canada has rolled back some environmental regulations and allowed the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure.
Last year, Canada scrapped its federal consumer carbon fuel charge and canceled a planned cap on greenhouse gas emissions from the oil and gas sector. It has also weakened rules designed to promote electric vehicle sales, ended a large tree planting program and delayed new methane regulations.
Now Carney is advocating for the construction of a pipeline that would connect Alberta’s landlocked oil sands to an expanded port on British Columbia’s Pacific Coast, increasing Canada’s ability to sell oil to Asia and other markets beyond the United States.
As part of his efforts to get the pipeline built, Carney has exempted Alberta’s energy industry from several environmental laws.
Carney’s apparent retreat on climate action comes as a surprise to many. Before taking over as prime minister, he was the United Nations Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance, and he spearheaded a coalition of financial institutions that promised to stop adding carbon dioxide to the environment through their lending and investments by 2050.
In statements to the Canadian media, the government has said it is working to reduce emissions.
“The government of Canada is committed to fighting climate change and reaching net-zero emissions by 2050,” a spokesman for Mr. Carney told CBC this summer. “We will continue working to build a clean, low-carbon and resilient country. As this matter is before the courts, we cannot comment further.”
Climate law
Climate-related litigation is expanding rapidly, with a growing number of cases being filed. Individuals and municipalities are bringing new types of lawsuits against governments and companies. The Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University is tracking thousands of cases around the globe.
A small but influential number of those cases have been brought by young people. The most prominent youth-led lawsuit in the United States, Juliana v. United States, was thrown out last year.
But other youth lawsuits, including several supported by Our Children’s Trust, have succeeded. In Montana, young people won a major case against the state government in 2023. And in 2024, Hawaii settled with a group of young people who brought a suit; the state agreed to adopt some new climate-friendly policies.
But the Trump administration has been aggressively pushing back on climate lawsuits, getting some cases thrown out and countersuing in other instances. Now, with the movement facing setbacks in the U.S., legal scholars will be closely watching the outcome in Canada.
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A six-month New York Times investigation shows how chemical plants and other industrial facilities got out of requirements to curb their toxic emissions.
A victory for the Amazon?
Scientists and environmentalists are calling Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s re-election a major victory for the Amazon rainforest.
“President Lula will have four more years to save the Amazon,” said Carlos Nobre, a professor of climate and sustainability at the University of São Paulo and co-chair of the Science Panel for the Amazon, a group of hundreds of scientists studying the rainforest.
Brazil controls some 60 percent of the Amazon. Under Mr. Lula, who sought re-election after winning the presidency in 2022, deforestation fell to record lows. His administration revived environmental enforcement and pushed ambitious policies to protect and restore parts of the ailing rainforest.
The Lula government had set a target of completely halting illegal deforestation by 2030, and announced a plan to regenerate vast swaths of rainforest. At international climate talks in 2023, Brazil announced an initiative to regrow six million hectares of the Amazon by 2030, and another 18 million by 2050.
“It’s very clear that President Lula, re-elected, will continue with his very good policies to protect the Amazon,” Dr. Nobre said. Had he lost, he said, “it would have been ecocide.” — Quinn Glabicki
Other news about Brazil and the rainforest:
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About 17 percent of the Amazon rainforest has been deforested since the 1970s, and much of that area is in Brazil. Deforestation surged under the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro but slowed under his successor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Explore maps and charts showing where the trees were lost.
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In the days leading up to the election, the right-wing challenger Flávio Bolsonaro was leading in polls. How President Lula staged a stunning comeback on Sunday.
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From the archives: The Amazon rainforest is a living, churning, breathing engine of weather and one of our planet’s climate tipping points.
More climate news from around the web:
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According to a study by Oxfam, the world’s wealthiest people are not just profiting from the polluting causes of climate breakdown, they are also increasingly cashing in on the catastrophic consequences, reports the Guardian.
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The Washington Post reports on a study that estimates the amount of “forever chemicals” in drinking water in the United States could be twice as high as levels reported in federal monitoring data.
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