A landmark trial has opened in Vancouver against the federal government of Canada over climate inaction. The lawsuit was filed by a group of young people who argue that extreme weather events — a direct consequence of Canada's weak climate policies — have negatively affected their lives. A wide range of issues have been brought before the court: from changes in daily habits caused by phenomena such as wildfires and extreme heat, to difficulties in planning for the future, as well as the impact on the physical and mental health of a climate emergency that has now become the new normal.

This is the first case of its kind in Canada, and among the first in the world, in which a government must face trial over the legitimacy and adequacy of its climate policies. And it comes at the very moment when the executive led by Mark Carney is dismantling many environmental protection regulations while giving fresh impetus to fossil fuels.

Fifteen against Canada

In October 2019, more than 10,000 people — including activist Greta Thunberg — marched through the streets of Vancouver to urge Canada's leaders to take concrete action on the climate crisis. It was on that occasion that a group of activists, aged between ten and 19, announced that they would file a lawsuit against the federal government for its contribution to the climate emergency.

The case took the name La Rose v. His Majesty the King and stems from the plaintiffs' conviction that Canada's climate inaction has violated the rights to life, liberty and personal security protected under Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Initially a federal court dismissed it on the grounds that the case was too broad; then an appeals court allowed the plaintiffs to amend their complaint and focus it on a specific policy. Attention then turned to the Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act and the related 2030 climate plan, which were deemed incompatible with a safe climate system for being too weak. The case was thus admitted to trial, which began on 23 October and is the first of its kind in Canada's history.

Climate change and mental health

The plaintiffs have different profiles and stories, yet all of them are connected to the climate emergency. The environmental non-profit organisation One Earth has gathered some of them.

Cecilia, from Toronto, suffers from allergic asthma and her health has worsened with rising temperatures, increasingly long pollen seasons and the surge in wildfires and their smoke. Zoe has had to spend several days indoors, in a kind of lockdown, because of the wildfires that devastated the forests around Vancouver, while a family home at Hopkins Landing is now threatened by coastal erosion. Leandrea, who belongs to the Tlingit indigenous people, has seen drought, wildfires and floods disrupt the harvesting, fishing and learning activities of her village. Sophia, who belongs to the Mi'kmaq indigenous people, highlighted how warming waters and the decline in salmon populations have shortened the fishing season, while heat, drought and wildfires have upended her community's daily life. Kira, originally from Yellowknife, was displaced for a month due to wildfires. Saj recounted how the climate emergency has upended her family planning, as she has begun to question her desire to have children given the extreme environmental fragility in which the planet finds itself.

Also called to testify at the first hearing was Elizabeth Pinsky, a paediatrician and child psychiatrist and one of the co-founders of Climate Code Blue, a group of climate activists in the healthcare sector. Pinsky described with a scientific approach how the incidence of depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder spikes among young people in areas affected by extreme weather events.

Towards a change of course

The group of plaintiffs aims to obtain a ruling that recognises how state inaction in combating climate change constitutes a violation of their constitutional rights, and that compels the government to develop and simultaneously implement a decarbonisation plan.

According to a report by the Canadian government itself, since 1970 the country has warmed at twice the rate of the global average, and if current global climate policies were to continue, Canada could see an average temperature increase of around five degrees by the end of the century. Further complicating matters is the direction taken by the government led by Mark Carney, which took office in 2025. Many policies aimed at environmental protection and emissions reduction have been dismantled over the past two years, and among the most contested measures are the abolition of the electric vehicle standard, the scrapping of the cap on oil and gas emissions, and the end of the consumer carbon tax. At the same time, the current executive is giving momentum to the fossil fuel sector, with funding programmes for new pipelines and the expansion of a liquefied natural gas export facility.

"Recent changes in federal policy have made Canada's commitment to achieving net-zero emissions even more out of reach, while also undermining our credibility in urging other countries to implement the necessary emissions reductions," noted Ryan Ness, research director at the Canadian Climate Institute. According to analysts, Canada is increasingly aligning itself with the United States in terms of climate policy, to the point that the percentage of emissions the country is expected to cut by 2030 has been scaled back to 14 per cent from the 30 per cent of a few years ago. With their landmark case — the first of its kind in the country — the 15 plaintiffs aim to put Canada back on track in the fight against climate change through effective and far-reaching policies. And, should they win, to give civil society around the world a tool to challenge their own governments' climate inaction.