Seven young climate activists from across Ontario — including Sudbury’s own Sophia Mathur — are appealing the dismissal of their climate case to the Court of Appeal for Ontario, their lawyers announced this month.
Mathur et. al., which their lawyers call a “historic youth climate case”, was dismissed in April by the Ontario Superior Court.
“These courageous youth are determined to continue the fight to protect their generation and future generations from government caused climate harms,” their lawyers, Ecojustice, said in a news release. “They are committed to seeing this through the legal system.”
Angered by what they felt as an Ontario government’s decision that significantly weakened the province’s 2030 climate target, the seven youth argued through their lawyers that “Ontario’s decision violates youth and future generations’ rights to life, security of the person, and equality protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”
While it dismissed the case, Ecojustice said the Ontario Superior Court made several positive findings, including that the judge fully endorsed the important science and facts of climate change, found that Ontario’s target is increasing the risk of harm and death to Ontarians, and acknowledged that young people and Indigenous Peoples are disproportionately impacted by climate change.
The court’s finding that the case is ‘justiciable’, that is to say poses an appropriate legal question for the court to decide, makes “this case the first Charter-based climate case in Canada to succeed on this point. The applicants will build on these significant findings and hope to establish a full Charter violation on appeal.”
“In their appeal, the applicants intend to show — among other things — that Ontario is not just failing to act on climate change; by permitting dangerous levels of emissions in this province, Ontario is actively causing the increased risk of harm and death to Ontarians,” Ecojustice said.
They will also try to convince the appellate court the judge erred “in finding that Ontario’s target is not arbitrary, while also determining that it “falls severely short of the scientific consensus” on the necessary climate action, and that the gap between them is “large, unexplained and without any apparent scientific basis.”
For her part, Sophia Mathur said the case is far from over.
“We are all in the crosshairs of the climate crisis and I have been struck by it,” she said in the news release. “The court has already acknowledged the fact that climate change is an existential threat and that it is disproportionately affecting young people. All of us, including our lawyers and my co-applicants, broke new ground again with this decision. This case is far from over and we are undaunted in our commitment to see this through.”
