On 17 June 2017, a firestorm erupted across central Portugal. It began with a heatwave. A dry thunderstorm followed. Then 156 wildfires ripped across the country. Several joined up to form a blazing infernoA huge fire. . Sixty-six people died and 204 were injured. That October it happened again, claiming 49 more lives across Portugal and neighbouring Spain.

Claudia Duarte Agostinho, now aged 24, was there: "What I felt was fear. The wildfires made me really anxious about what sort of future I would have." She claims to have suffered from eco-anxiety since.

Her brother Martim, 20, says his allergies have flared up, while their sister Mariana, 11, has started suffering from asthmaA common lung condition that can cause breathing difficulties.. She says: "I want a green world without pollution, I want to be healthy."

These siblings have made an incredible move. With three other young people, they have filed a lawsuit against 32 European governments.¹ They accuse them of violating human rightsThe basic rights and freedoms that belong to every person in the world, from birth until death. They apply regardless of where you are from, what you believe or how you choose to live your life. Some have called for animals and even natural phenomena like rivers to have some form of human rights. by failing to fight climate change. If it succeeds, it could force the governments involved to take urgent climate action.

One person hoping that it fails might be UK prime minister Rishi Sunak. On the same day the lawsuit was announced, regulators approved his plan to begin drilling at a newly-discovered oil field in the North SeaThe sea between the British Isles and the northwestern European mainland. .

Climate activists have slammed Sunak for slowing down the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Green MP Caroline Lucas called the move "the greatest act of environmental vandalism in my lifetime".

But the youths can take heart from another lawsuit. In the USA this August, 16 young people won a case against Montana. They argued the state was violating their rights by allowing unchecked fossil fuel development.

In both cases, lawmakers are being accused of failing to stop climate change. The Montana verdict suggests that inaction on climate change may one day become criminal.

Some think this change is crucial. In 2015 investigative journalists discovered that oil companies in the 1970s knew that burning fossil fuels causes global warming. But they chose to cover their tracks. The world burned to protect their profits.

Decisions like these have made everyone on Earth a victim, whether Londoners breathing polluted air, farmers in Bangladesh losing land to rising sea levels or Portuguese teenagers facing deadly wildfires. As environmental writer Mark Hertsgaard says: "Every person on Earth today is living in a crime scene."

Others argue that prosecuting climate inaction is near-impossible. It can be hard enough to detect active environmental crimes, such as illegal tree-felling or poachingIllegally hunting animals that are either protected or on someone else's land. . How can we find those whose crime is doing nothing?

Blame for climate change seldom falls on just one person or group. If we are to charge an oil company, do we arrest the executives, the shareholdersPeople who own shares in a company. Owning a share means somebody owns a very small part of the company. , all employees? Do we arrest those who used the oil to heat their homes when alternatives were available? Deciding where the buck stops will take decades - time we do not have.

Yes: All those with the power to reduce climate change have a responsibility to do so. Failure to do so is a matter of life and death for all of us. It is only fair that they face the consequences.

No: Punishing those that all failed to act would take an enormous amount of effort, money and time. But the clock is ticking. We should stop looking back and focus all our resources on the future.

Or... Few of us are innocent. Every time we throw away a single-use plastic or use electricity generated from fossil fuels, we hurt the Earth. Where do we draw the line between victim and criminal?