Sawt Falasteen - Youths testify about 'despair' in unprecedented Canadian climate trial

The latest testimony from the 15 plaintiffs who brought the suit, all aged 17 to 25, is part of a growing global movement among environmental activists seeking to use courts to force government accountability on climate change.

"I want the court to know that we are doing this for our future," Sadie Vipond said on the stand.

The 20-year-old student hails from Calgary, in western Canada, where she described thick smoke and overwhelming heat that descends year after year on her hometown.

Wildfires are "something we had to be more and more aware of," Vipond said, adding that she had to evacuate her home in 2013 because of flooding.

"It again brought this sense of despair" in 2022 when the floods returned.

Sophia Sidarous, a 25-year-old member of First Nation, gave emotional testimony about the threat climate change poses to her community's traditional activities.

"Someone actually died from the heat during a powwow," she said, describing a traditional Indigenous gathering where she lives in Nova Scotia, in eastern Canada.

She described the frustration of belonging to a community of hunters while "we have moose and salmon and various other species that are declining."

Climate science professor Kirsten Zickfeld, of Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, also testified for nearly three hours to explain to the court the "increase in the intensity and frequency of extreme heat events, of droughts, of heavy rainfall events and also of rapid sea level rise."

"Canada's carbon budget is essentially zero or negative," Zickfeld added, noting that such a burden "will be passed on to future generations."

Overall, the plaintiffs aim to prove that successive governments have violated their constitutional rights to life and security by failing to protect them from the threats posed by climate change.

Canadian targets currently call for a 40-45 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 compared with 2005 levels, but Prime Minister Mark Carney's government has already indicated those benchmarks may be missed.

The lawsuit, first filed in 2019, was initially dismissed. In 2023, a federal appeals court ruled the youths were entitled to a trial.

C.AbuSway--SF-PST