Our Children’s Trust has supported youth plaintiffs in Mexico since 2020, most recently in the youth-led climate case Jóvenes v. Gobierno de México. 

On December 5, 2019, fifteen youth plaintiffs from the state of Baja California, ages 17 to 23, filed the lawsuit Jóvenes v. Gobierno de México against their federal government asking the Mexican government to comply with its constitutional obligations and to issue regulations enacting the terms of Mexico’s General Law on Climate Change. 

In recent years, climate change has reached an emergency level in Mexico, putting food, health, and access to water at risk for millions of citizens. Today, Mexico is one of 10 countries that are collectively responsible for 73% of all greenhouse gas emissions on the planet. The main sources of emissions in the country are the generation of energy from the use of fossil fuels, inappropriate waste management techniques, and agricultural and industrial activities.

Given the harmful impacts from climate change that they have each experienced as well as the extreme urgency of the climate crisis, the youth plaintiffs maintain the Mexican Government has failed to fulfill its constitutional obligation to guarantee them access to a healthy environment. Although the Mexican Legislature passed a General Law on Climate Change was passed in 2012, there are still no regulations or public policies that allow for it to be properly implemented.

“We are young people who need to raise our voices, both in Mexico and in other countries, because it is clear that our future and that of new generations is threatened. The generation that today governs and makes decisions has a rapidly growing moral debt as long as precise actions are not taken,” said Nelson G., one of the plaintiffs. 

The youth plaintiffs in Jóvenes v. Gobierno de México are represented by our partners at Defensa Ambiental del Noroeste (DAN) and supported by Our Children’s Trust.