By Dana Drugmand

Honolulu will join the growing wave of U.S. municipalities that have filed climate liability suits against fossil fuel companies.

Mayor Kirk Caldwell said on Tuesday he intends to file suit against BP, Chevron, Shell, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, the BHP Group, Marathon and Aloha Petroleum to hold them accountable for climate impacts to the city. The announcement comes just one week after Maui announced it intends to do the same. Both suits are pending approval of other local officials.

The municipalities are seeking to force the fossil fuel companies to help pay for climate adaptation and damage costs. Both suits are expected to allege that the companies knew for decades about the devastating climate consequences of their products and engaged in a tobacco-style campaign to undermine the science and obstruct regulatory policies.   

“The ocean is speaking about the [climate] crisis as we talk,” Caldwell said against a backdrop of overcast skies and rising spray from waves. “For 50 years, Big Oil knew about these impacts. They knew—and then they covered it up.” 

Hawaii is particularly vulnerable to climate impacts such as sea level rise, flooding and severe storms. Over 70 percent of Hawaii’s beaches are in a chronic state of erosion and the island of Oahu has lost nearly 25 percent of its beaches. A category 3 hurricane could inflict $26 billion in damages on Oahu alone and relocation of roads in the state is estimated to cost $15 billion. The state’s tourism industry is also expected to suffer as the sea eats away at Hawaii’s famous beaches. 

“Rising seas, rain bombs, stronger hurricanes, and other consequences of climate change are already threatening Oahu and will impact our fiscal health,” Honolulu city council budget chair Joey Manahan said. “Taxpayers should not have to pay for all the steps we will need to take to protect our roads, beaches, homes, and businesses. That should be on the fossil fuel companies who knowingly caused the damage, and as budget chair I believe we should go to court to make them pay their share.” 

Sixty-eight percent of Hawaiians strongly support making fossil fuel companies pay for climate damages, according to a recent poll. That rises to 71 percent among residents of Honolulu County.

“Oahu taxpayers shouldn’t have to bear the burden of this cost,” Manahan said at Tuesday’s press briefing. 

Josh Stanbro, Honolulu’s chief resilience officer, said Honolulu must prepare now.

“California is on fire, the Bahamas were nearly wiped off the map, and Houston has been hit by three 500-year floods in the past three years. It is devastating to find out that Big Oil knew these impacts would occur as far back as the 1960s, and yet they chose to undermine the science and sow confusion instead of becoming responsible corporate citizens,” said Stanbro.

“This lawsuit won’t stop climate change from happening, but it will help pay for the protection and preparation of our citizens as climate disasters continue to come our way.”

By Karen Savage

Maui County will become the next municipality to file a climate liability suit against fossil fuel companies.

Mayor Michael Victorina on Tuesday said he intends to file suit against the companies to hold them accountable for climate impacts to Maui County, which includes four of Hawaii’s islands and more than 200 miles of coastline.

Hawaii is particularly vulnerable to climate impacts such as sea level rise, drought and wildfires, with those impacts already taking a catastrophic toll. Recent brush fires have burned 23,000 acres of Maui County, causing evacuations and the closure of the Kapalua Airport.

Sea level rise is already affecting public infrastructure, public and private property and harming Maui County’s economy. Projections of stronger and more frequent El Nino events and tropical cyclones will increase its vulnerability to coastal flooding erosion and other impacts of severe weather. Damage is expected to be in the millions.

The lawsuit will join more than a dozen others across the country, filed by cities, counties and one state (Rhode Island) to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for the impacts of climate change. The municipalities have filed mostly under state laws, accusing the companies of knowing their products fueled global warming as they sold and marketed them for decades. They are seeking compensation for climate impacts that have already happened as well as adaptation costs to protect citizens and infrastructure.

“Much of the land designated for urban land uses will be adversely affected by sea level rise, so we need to plan for that now,” Victorino said, adding that the county expects climate change to  impact on tourism, harbors, airports, infrastructure pump stations, water and sewer lines and roadways.

The suit, which will be filed pending the approval of the Maui County Council, is expected to target major fossil fuel companies, similar to suits filed by dozens of municipalities across the country.

“Fossil fuel companies could have taken steps to reduce damage or warn people about the danger from continued use of products that harm the environment. Instead, they’ve promoted and marketed their products and made billions in profits, all the while protecting their own assets from the damages they knew would occur,” Victorino said.

“They’ve undertaken a campaign to undermine their own science that predicted global warming and its devastating impacts. We can no longer allow fossil fuel companies to shift the cost of paying for the effects of sea level rise and climate change to our taxpayers.”

By Karen Savage

A federal judge has agreed to put the brakes on a lawsuit filed by King County, Wash., against five major oil companies for knowingly contributing to climate change.

U.S. District Judge Robert S. Lasnick on Wednesday approved a motion filed by the county to stay proceedings on its lawsuit pending a ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on the dismissal of similar suits filed by Oakland and San Francisco.

In its suit, which was filed earlier this year in King County Superior Court, the county alleges that the companies—Exxon, Shell, Chevron, BP and ConocoPhillips—knew for decades about fossil fuels’ role in driving climate change and the potential impacts but deliberately failed to inform the public about those risks. The case was subsequently moved to federal court.

The county is seeking to hold the companies accountable, asking that they be required to fund the costs of adapting stormwater infrastructure, protecting public health, salmon recovery and other climate change-related costs. King County encompasses Seattle, the largest city in the Northwest.

In the motion to stay—which was unopposed by ConocoPhillips, Exxon and Shell—the county said its case is akin to cases filed in Oakland and San Francisco, which are currently under appeal in the Ninth Circuit. Both cities sued the same companies and are represented by the same attorneys.

Like the King County suit, the Oakland and San Francisco cases were initially filed in state court. They were moved by the defendants to federal court, where Judge William Alsup in the Northern District of California rejected motions by the cities to move the cases back to state court.

Alsup eventually dismissed the claims, ruling that nuisance claims arise under federal, not state, common law. He also said the problem of global warming is too vast in scope to deem just five companies liable and said the executive and legislative branches of government are the proper place to resolve it. The cities have since appealed to the Ninth Circuit and briefs from both sides are due in the coming months.

In its motion, King County also pointed to suits by San Mateo and San Marin counties and the city of Imperial Beach against more than two dozen fossil fuel companies. A different federal judge, Vince Chhabria, disagreed with Alsup and remanded the cases back to state court. The companies sued in those cases have appealed that decision to the Ninth Circuit and briefs in those cases are also due in the coming months.

In his ruling on King County’s motion Wednesday, Lasnick said it was prudent to wait for the Ninth Circuit to rule on the Oakland and San Francisco cases before proceeding. He agreed that the Oakland and San Francisco cases are “identical” or “materially identical to the King County suit and that upcoming rulings by the Ninth Circuit will likely have “…significant relevance to—and potentially control—the court’s subsequent ruling here.”

“There is substantial overlap between the present action and the Oakland/San Francisco Actions, particularly with regard to how and whether state-law public nuisance claims are preempted by federal common law,” Lasnick wrote.