Legal actions to affect climate change by federal and state-level governments have been attempted since the 1990s; one of the first known cases was led by Antonio Oposa, a Philippine lawyer that represented a class-action suit of 43 students against the Philippine government to protect a forest surrounding their village. Oposa had won the suit, which led to numerous other lawsuits around the world. As of July 2018, there were over 1,000 such lawsuits filed across 24 countries, with 888 of those within the United States. Such cases typically involve youth and children and other future generations, as they help to broaden the appeal of the action, and represent the class that would be most affected by government action or inaction.
