Luca Saunders is only 16 but says she's already been terrorised by climate change.
The first time was in 2013 when bushfires raged near her acreage home on the outskirts of Blackheath in NSW's Blue Mountains.
It was a much closer call during the Black Summer bushfires of 2019.
She is quite certain that at some point her family's home will be lost and is struggling to accept a Federal Court ruling that the government doesn't owe her protection.
"I am hurt. I hurt for my town, I hurt for my friends who've also been through the same trauma I've been through," she says.
"And I hurt especially for my family. I know we won't be as lucky every year in the future.
"But of course I'm going to continue to fight for my generation and for my town."
Tuesday's ruling by the full bench of the Federal Court reversed a previous judge's decision that Environment Minister Sussan Ley did have a duty to protect Australian children when assessing projects that contribute to climate change.
Ms Saunders was among eight students who brought that case, which also unsuccessfully challenged Whitehaven Coal's Vickery mine expansion - a project that will add an estimated 100 million tonnes of carbon emissions into the atmosphere.
In overturning the original duty of care ruling, the full bench offered reasons including that protecting people from climate change injury is not a responsibility of the minister under national environmental laws.
Chief Justice Allsop mentioned the tiny contribution to the overall risk of damage from climate change posed by the minister's decisions.
Justice Beach found there was not sufficient closeness and directness between the minister's exercise of statutory power and the likely risk of harm to the respondents.
Justice Wheelahan was not persuaded that it was reasonably foreseeable that the approval of the coal mine extension would cause personal injury to the respondents.
Political analyst Mark Kenny, from the Australian National University, says the Morrison government will be celebrating Tuesday's result.
"Because it does, on the face of it tend to vindicate Scott Morrison's argument ... about climate change as a global problem rather than one that can be resolved at a local level," he says.
"But of course that is a morally vacuous argument. It's a legally strong one and morally, completely empty."
Lock the Gate Alliance spokesperson Georgina Woods said Tuesday's decision encapsulated the conceptual challenge people have with climate change.
"It is this enormous catastrophic and irreversible harm that is being created by millions upon millions of, in some cases, relatively insignificant actions," she says.
"It's a failure of perspective to see 100 million tonnes of greenhouse gasses being added to the atmosphere by one Australian coal mine as not worthy of our attention, and not doing harm because you are contextualising that within a global picture.
"Every time Australia approves a new coal mine we are adding to the harm that is being done to Australian children."
Ms Ley welcomed the fact that all three judges allowed her appeal.
"The Morrison government remains committed to protecting our environment for current and future generations," a spokesperson said.
"The minister always takes her role as the environment minister seriously."
Whitehaven also welcomed the ruling.
"Confidence in Australia's environmental approvals framework is essential to ensuring our resources sector can continue to support our national economic prosperity."
"Whitehaven confirms its Vickery project has all primary approvals in place at both the state and federal levels."
