Republican attorneys general in seventeen states are attempting to derail a key climate lawsuit days before settlement talks are set to begin. The abrupt move, which follows the fossil fuel industry funneling millions to the GOP politicians involved, threatens to upend what could be a historic win for environmental activists.

The Republican effort comes in the same week scientists sounded an alarm about atmospheric carbon dioxide hitting its highest level in four million years.

In 2015, twenty-one young plaintiffs, supported by the nonprofit Our Children’s Trust, sued the Obama administration in a case called Juliana v. United States. The claimants, ages eight to nineteen, argued that the federal government had directly contributed to the global climate crisis and in doing so, violated their constitutional rights — essentially to life, liberty, and property.