Climate Litigation Against The US Is Dead. How Long Will State Climate Damage Cases Survive?

On Monday morning, the Supreme Court denied certiorari in Juliana v. United States. The cert. denial leaves in place the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision that ordered the case dismissed for lack of standing. At least for now, this seems to mark the death knell of this kind of climate litigation in the United States. While the denial of cert. is not precedential, it's hard to see any other appeals court reaching a different decision.

In fact, the denial of cert. may not be a bad thing from the climate perspective. After the 9th Circuit decision, the trade press reported widely that numerous experienced environmental litigators were pretty much pleading with plaintiffs' counsel not to appeal further, because they did not want to give SCOTUS an opportunity to take a hatchet to standing jurisprudence. They are now presumably breathing a sigh of relief.