Julia Olson

Julia Olson empowers youth to secure their climate rights in courts around the world, protect their futures, and save our planet. Over fifteen years and through more than 50 legal campaigns in the U.S. and around the world, she’s established that children have a protected right to a climate system that sustains life—not just in theory, but also in enforceable law. Through impact litigation and public campaigns, she’s setting a new course in law, changing public discourse, and holding governments accountable in time to provide meaningful redress from fossil fuel pollution.

Securing the recognition of children’s climate rights in courts around the world will force government action at the scale required to save their lives and the future of the planet.

Julia asserts that the state-sponsored climate crisis is the single biggest threat to children today. The voices of our children and the expertise of our scientists have taken a backseat to politics and adult-centered, short-term interests. The problem is not just that children are uniquely harmed by fossil fuel pollution and a less stable climate, but that children’s invisibility in human rights laws and justice systems perpetuates injustice.

Julia is leveraging the power of the law and has developed a novel – and effective – approach for catalyzing systemic change: youth-led climate rights litigation. The organization she founded is the world’s only non-profit dedicated exclusively to securing the fundamental legal rights of youth to a healthy atmosphere and safe climate. They represent young clients – free of charge – to protect their right to a stable climate. Through groundbreaking legal strategies, such as utilizing the public trust doctrine and advocating for fundamental constitutional rights, they’ve achieved tangible results. Court victories have been secured, a ground-breaking settlement has been ordered, and global youth movements have been energized.

Through their litigation work, Julia, her team, and her young plaintiffs hold governments accountable to protect and uphold children’s rights, forcing action on climate in adherence with the best available science, at the scale required to change the trajectory. --It's a powerful, replicable strategy that reframes the problem and the solution, and she’s actively helping advance cases all around the world while training the next generation of legal minds.

Government action is the biggest driver of the climate crisis, and the only durable solution. And children and young people most deeply impacted by the crisis lack the voting or economic power to achieve change.

The problem we face is not merely environmental degradation or climate change. According to Julia, it is “a fundamental breach of intergenerational equity and a betrayal of our duty to safeguard the world for generations to come.” Traditional assessments often fail to grasp the urgency and complexity of this crisis, focusing instead on short-term fixes that perpetuate systemic inertia. What sets Julia’s work with Our Children's Trust apart is their astute diagnosis of the root cause: a lack of legal mechanisms that hold governments accountable for their actions causing climate catastrophe.

As Julia puts it, for fifty years, “we have completely and disastrously failed to stop the climate crisis, even though there has been more than enough information to act and more than enough public opinion supporting action.” Scientists rang the alarm, but governments have affirmatively promoted fossil fuels by offering subsidies, granting permits, and knowingly allowing the degradation of our home planet. Governments and their regulatory bodies have done little to nothing to stop pollution and destruction and – in so doing – have undermined planetary health and wellbeing, threatening our and our children’s futures.

Julia also notes that, until recently, one governmental body has been sitting on the sidelines: the world’s courts. It’s true that words like “children” or “climate” or “health” are not found in the U.S. Constitution, nor in the constitutions of most U.S. states or other countries. But other basic right-bearers or rights that went “without ink” include “women” and “marriage,” both of which have since become codified in the law. Julia believes it’s imperative to do the same for children and their right to a stable climate, and for the world’s courts to articulate and enforce these rights.

This is particularly important because children are not just little adults or younger people. They have distinct physiologies, abilities, and needs that make them more vulnerable than adults to extreme weather, heat, and pollution, for example. Without voting or economic power, they depend on others to protect their rights.

Indeed, upon becoming a mother herself, Julia was appalled to realize that – despite these extra barriers children face – most courts have not considered or decided the simple question of whether, under an equal protection analysis, children are entitled to special classification or other protected status not just because of their age and lack of political power, but because they are physiologically and psychologically still developing and more vulnerable to their environment. Furthermore, no one had ever tried to use the courts to establish a child’s right to something that seemed so obvious to Julia: a right to a safe, stable climate system. But all that was about to change.

When we secure children’s climate rights, we shift the entire energy paradigm from one that centers profits to one that centers their lives. Actions that advance the climate crisis are rendered unconstitutional.

In the early 2000s, the polar bear was the face of global warming and the challenge of addressing climate change was mostly left to the environmental sector. But to Julia – a new mom at the time – it was clear that climate change was a human rights issue, too, and that the situation was more dire than a vague threat of a warming planet. Children like hers were irrefutably growing up in a world that was increasingly less safe, healthy, and stable. She believed people needed to see that the face of this crisis was in fact that of a human child, but the larger environmental organizations she reached out to couldn’t see it. The human rights organizations she contacted didn’t see their role either. And somewhat inexplicably, on the issue of children and climate rights, no one was actively getting the courts involved.

So, in 2010, Julia launched Our Children’s Trust to champion legal cases that frame the climate crisis as a violation of young people’s constitutional rights to life, liberty, and a stable environment. She knew that what she was about to undertake would take time; changing the foundational law in the case of women’s rights, for example, took 100 years. But she didn’t feel we had that sort of time. From the start, she and her team gave themselves just years to change federal and state law, and 12 months to file legal actions in all 50 U.S. states. With just days to spare, they met the second goal in 2011, and just this past year (2024) cases that blossomed out of that initial launch resulted in state-wide wins, with new rights for children articulated and durable commitments to ending fossil-fuel expansion in Montana and a commitment from Hawaii to decarbonize its entire transportation system by 2045. The federal work is still advancing, and her model is spreading with success around the world. There have been around 90 youth-led climate cases filed against more than 60 governments around the world.

What exactly is Julia’s model, and what makes it so effective? First, Julia and her team start by working with partners to connect with young people who’ve experienced climate injuries and impacts firsthand, whether from wildfires or rising temperatures, flooding, or the loss of spiritual and cultural practices. To date, they are the only pro-bono, non-profit law firm in the world that exclusively represents young people, and they excel at it. Julia has a respect for young people that borders on reverence. It’s their stories and direct experiences she’s interested in, those that come from the deep knowing and clarity that children uniquely possess.

In every case, Our Children’s Trust intentionally brings forth a group of many youth plaintiffs with diverse backgrounds and their own unique stories. This not only helps people see themselves in the stories and connect more deeply, but it also prevents the harsh glare of the limelight from landing on just one young person. Through and through, much care is paid to the young plaintiffs’ wellbeing, all of whom are there only of their own volition. In fact, during the careful, trauma-informed process of getting to know potential plaintiffs, parents of these young people are often surprised at what they learn and blown away, having really heard for the first time the profundity of their own children’s experiences. In this way, groups of plaintiffs come into focus, and Julia and her team of lawyers file cases on behalf of their young clients, like the twenty-one racially diverse children and young people from 10 states who brought their landmark case –Juliana v. United States – in 2015.

Our Children’s Trust is very strategic in how they build cases. Julia’s team has a database of potential cases in every state and a decision-making framework to guide them in choosing when and where to move. They factor in things like where the conditions for building good case law are most powerful, where cases might be most winnable, where the impact potential is greatest, and where young people are most dedicated. Challenging the practice of “economic discounting” (as is the focus of the case in federal court in California) is an example of setting case law. Representing groups of passionate, self-organized young people in Virginia and Florida are cases of young people getting the ball moving, despite the other factors being less ideal.

No matter where they land, to make their cases unassailable, Julia and her team work closely with climate scientists, pediatricians, energy systems experts, and others to present the best evidence of the astronomical consequences of this government-driven crisis. At the same time they work with the best lawyers to invoke constitutional principles and strategically apply legal doctrines like the “Public Trust Doctrine” (the legal doctrine that natural resources are held in trust by governments for the benefit of all present and future generations), the Posterity Clause (the commitment that all rights and benefits of the U.S. Constitution are secured for future generations), or “Prohibition on the Corruption of Blood” (the stipulation in Article III of the U.S. Constitution that, unlike in English common law, American children cannot inherit their father’s treasonous sins, effectively protecting children from suffering those burdens imposed on them by adults for matters beyond their control), and the “right to life” as a means to protect living, breathing children. Ultimately, Julia is setting new legal precedents that oblige governments to safeguard the environment for future generations, with the legally binding judicial declarations aligned with the scientific prescription for a safe climate.

How does this work in practice? Let’s look at the example of Montana, a major fossil fuel producing state with a constitution that clearly states that “the state and each person shall maintain and improve a clean and healthful environment in Montana for present and future generations.” But Montana also had a legal prohibition on state agencies from considering the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change when conducting environmental reviews for proposed projects, and children were getting sick from the environmental fallout. So, in 2020, Our Children’s Trust rallied and represented 16 young plaintiffs in filing their lawsuit against the State of Montana. Over the course of the trial, evidence was presented by 10 experts, 14 fact witnesses, and the government’s own documents. The case culminated in the landmark Held v. Montana ruling in August 2023, where a Montana judge sided with the youth plaintiffs and deemed parts of the state’s environmental policies unconstitutional. The ruling further established that every additional ton of greenhouse gas pollution is causing unconstitutional, human rights injuries to these young people. It made clear that ending the era of fossil fuel energy systems is essential to protecting the life, health, and dignity of every child, everywhere. The 6-1 legal victory at the Montana state supreme court is precedent setting for other states and stops fossil fuel expansion in Montana, informed by science.

All of this takes time, but every step forward is trailblazing. Even a strong dissent is helpful for future trials, but we don’t need to scrape the barrel for evidence of impact here. In addition to Montana’s milestones, in November 2016 in the Juliana v. United States case, a District Court Judge ruled for the first time in history that the U.S. Constitution secures the fundamental right to a climate system capable of sustaining life. And youth-plaintiffs in Hawaii scored a major victory when their state agreed as part of a first-in-the-nation settlement to take action to achieve a zero-emissions transportation system in Hawaii by 2045. To date, with Our Children’s Trust’s leadership and support, youth and their lawyers have filed more than 50 cases against almost as many nations and states.

Thanks to this work, the world is now witnessing the passion and determination of youth plaintiffs. Their voices, coupled with the power of the law, show up as a powerful, practical way forward, an antidote to the overwhelm and despair gripping young people and adults alike. As such, people around the world have been inspired by Our Children’s Trust’s youth plaintiffs, and Julia’s team has been consulted and gotten involved in cases across the European Union, South Korea, Australia, Pakistan, the Philippines, and a dozen other countries. In addition to their U.S. docket, Our Children’s Trust supports young people in active climate cases and legal actions in Canada, Mexico, and Uganda. Furthermore, they are laying the groundwork to bring cases on behalf of Indigenous youth in South America. And beyond that, other cases are coming up organically.

Julia’s hope is that everyone would be representing young people the way Our Children’s Trust does: centering their voices, ensuring that the young people truly are in the lead and informed of their rights, and working in a trauma-informed and authentic way, with legal strategies rooted in trust in science, human rights, democracy, and constitutionality. Our Children’s Trust is also training the next generation of legal minds to think big, advance the law, and boldly protect our democracy. Indeed, Julia believes we need to evolve the law through courts, but also academia. Here Julia has worked with children’s rights scholars to build out curricula in law schools, with professors and lawyers now writing articles and training future lawyers. And beyond that, in Hawaii, as part of the settlement they won, Our Children’s Trust has been enlisted to monitor and guide the statewide implementation of the full transition to becoming fossil fuel free. They even work with the state Department of Education to upgrade the curriculum of every school, to ensure all children learn about their right to a stable climate, their state’s settlement agreement, and the value of multi-modal transportation systems.

In Julia’s hands, this is clearly more than a legal innovation. It’s a closing of the gap between vision and reality. The work with students from grade schools to law schools is comprehensive by design. Indeed, Julia believes this is one of the keys to her success: her ability to envision the full, complete transformation away from fossil fuels “all the way to the end.” She asserts that you also need to win not just in the courtroom but also in the court of public opinion, and that she wouldn’t have had nearly the same impact had her team not aligned with youth-led movements and invested in their robust communications strategies. She lights up when painting the picture of cities and states that fully decarbonize and get off of fossil fuels. While some of us will have to wait until 2045 in Hawaii or 2050 in Montana to see this reality for ourselves, Julia can already see it so clearly. She’s merely helping the legal sector and the rest of us catch up.

Julia loved growing up in the mountain west. She spent her childhood summers climbing 13,000-foot mountains, backpacking, building a strong environmental ethic, and working in community with her family and other young people at a summer camp that her family worked at.

Then, at the age of 17, a man she didn’t know shot her with an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle while she was sitting in a car. As traumatizing as the whole experience was – from recovering from her wounds to testifying in court – Julia emerged empowered by her ability to stand up, do something that was scary, and ultimately see the justice system at work. She was able to say what she wanted to happen to this person who had shot her, and for it to happen: his guns were taken away and he was given mental health support.

Given these formative experiences, Julia surprised no one by going on to school to become a lawyer, despite being the first in her family to do so. Then, after finishing law school, she faced a difficult choice: would she bring her new legal skills to bear addressing gun violence or advancing environmental law? Believing she could have more impact on the latter, Julia spent more than a decade representing grassroots conservation groups working to protect the environment, organic agriculture, and human health. When she became a mother, she realized the greatest threat to her children - and children everywhere - was climate change. And she reflected on the power she felt as a young person when the law was on her side. Julia shifted her focus to supporting young people in asserting their climate rights in courts around the world.

When it comes to fossil fuels and the climate crisis, Julia believes that the light Juliana v. United States sparked in the world will eventually be “the case that changes everything.” That prophecy may well become true with the filing of her newest case, Lighthiser v. Trump, challenging the 2025 executive order directives to “unleash fossil fuels” on America while silencing climate science. When the Lighthiser wins, she envisions Our Children’s Trust bringing a constitutional children’s rights case to also stop gun violence.