Editor’s Note: Slight reference to Australia. It counts.

Michael Gerrard of Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change called the Held decision “The strongest decision on climate change ever issued by any court.”

“To be sure, it is a state court not a federal court and the ruling is based on a state constitution and not the US Constitution,” he stated to the Associated Press, “But it is still clearly a major, pathbreaking win for climate plaintiffs.”

Work had resumed after the legislature’s amendment to the state energy law explicitly preventing state agencies from considering “An evaluation of greenhouse gas emissions and corresponding impacts to the climate in the state or beyond the state’s borders.” Such a resumption of construction had taken place in the absence of any review about the “Cumulative impacts of the permits issues on GHG emissions or climate change.”

Seeley also noted that four private coal power plants have been authorised to produce 30% of Montana’s energy needs “Without considering how the added GHG emissions will contribute to climate change or be consistent with the standards the Constitution imposes” on the state’s entities “To protect people’s rights.”

Emily Flower, spokesperson for the state’s attorney general, Austin Knudsen, restated the government position that those in Montana “Can’t be blamed for changing the climate.” The legal theory being tested “Has been thrown out of federal court and courts in more than a dozen states. It should have been here as well.”