Environment

Youth plaintiffs testify about climate anxiety and cultural loss in landmark trial

Fifteen young people are arguing federal legislation violates their rights by failing to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

By Bianca Ferraro, Environment Reporter
October 28, 2026

VANCOUVER · Sadie Vipond told a Federal Court judge she was seven years old when she first noticed the impacts of climate change. The 20-year-old plaintiff described experiencing catastrophic floods in Calgary in 2013, which the city says led to mass evacuations, one death and $6 billion in losses. She is one of 15 young people arguing that federal legislation violates their constitutional rights by continuing the trajectory of greenhouse gas emissions. Their lawyer, Catherine Boies Parker, said in an opening statement that the case is not about the existence of climate change but whether the government is "constitutionally required to stop making it worse."

Vipond testified on Tuesday that she has experienced several climate change events since the floods, including wildfire smoke and intense heat. "I've been seeing these impacts all my life, and I've been seeing how these impacts are getting worse," she said, adding that they had taken a toll on her mental health. She said she joined the case when she was 13 after appealing to Calgary City Council to adopt a climate recovery plan. "I want to see the creation of a plan for my country because I'm scared for what my future is going to look like," Vipond told the court. Another plaintiff, Sophia Sidarous of the Metepenagiag First Nation in New Brunswick, told the court climate change has impacted Indigenous cultural practices. She said the cancellation of sweat lodges and sacred fires due to intense heat or fire bans took away the ability "to be cleansed" and to "learn from the elders while they're still here." Sidarous described removing herself from powwows to sit in air conditioning with her young son and noted a decline in traditional foods like salmon and moose.

She said traditional plants such as chaga, a medicinal fungus, have started disappearing. "Due to the rising temperatures and unprecedented wildfires in the Atlantic, a lot of the birch bark trees are being impacted by that, and so the chaga that grows on those birchbark trees are burning or dying because the tree isn't healthy," Sidarous said. She reflected on experiencing hurricane Fiona in 2022 and preparing for evacuations from floods and wildfires in subsequent years. "It's just very depressing to have to deal with constant crises all the time and a constant survival mode to be in," she told the court. The court has heard the plaintiffs allege specific harms connected to government conduct, including respiratory illness worsened by wildfire smoke, displacement due to extreme weather, mental health impacts like climate anxiety, and loss of cultural connections to the land. The 15 youth plaintiffs are from seven provinces and two territories. Your Space Hamilton reported in October that the young people are arguing the government's net-zero plan fails to protect their life and security from climate harms.

Earlier on Tuesday, climate science professor Kirsten Zickfeld from Simon Fraser University testified. She said models suggest Canada has "exceeded its fair share" of its "carbon budget." Zickfeld explained the concept of a carbon budget, the maximum amount of carbon dioxide emissions that can be released while keeping global warming around 1.5 degrees Celsius, a target set in the 2015 Paris Agreement. She said to stabilize global temperatures, there is a need for "net zero" emissions.

Zickfeld told the court that carbon budgets are calculated based on principles of "equity, capability and responsibility" and that calculations suggest "Canada's carbon budget is essentially zero or negative." She said Canada is among the 10 largest emitters of greenhouse gases annually and historically. Under cross-examination, Zickfeld said while science helps determine targets, it "doesn't provide the path" to meeting them. The trial began on Monday and is expected to continue into late November, with closing arguments scheduled for February. More plaintiffs are expected to testify on Wednesday.

With files from The Canadian Press, Yahoo News and Castanet