A federal court judge has dismissed several climate change lawsuits in California targeting fossil fuel companies.
U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup dismissed the lawsuits Monday night, and threw out claims by city governments in San Francisco and Oakland that targeted major energy companies for their role in causing the Earth’s temperature to rise.
The cities were seeking damages to help them construct sea walls and other infrastructure necessary to cope with sea-level rise caused by global warming.
But Alsup said the issue of climate change was not one for the courts to decide, and said in an order that it was up to the president and Congress to address.
“The problem deserves a solution on a more vast scale than can be supplied by a district judge or jury in a public nuisance case,” said the judge.
Balancing the “worldwide positives of the energy” against the role it plays in warming the Earth “demand the expertise of our environmental agencies, our diplomats, our Executive, and at least the Senate,” Alsup continued in the order.
Other cities like New York have also sued oil companies over the role they played in causing climate change. Those lawsuits were filed in other courts and were not addressed in Monday night’s order.
Industry took the lawsuit’s dismissal as a major victory, calling the lawsuits baseless and not the right place to address what is a global issue.
“From the moment these baseless lawsuits were filed, we have argued that the courtroom was not the proper venue to address this global challenge,” said Jay Timmons, president and CEO of the National Manufacturers Association. “Judge Alsup agreed.”
Timmons warned other municipalities around the country who have filed similar lawsuits to “take note as those complaints are likely to end the same way.”
He said lawsuits by New York City, Boulder, Colo., and the other California municipalities should be withdrawn. Instead, they should “follow the lead of others that are focused on meaningful solutions,” and not litigation, Timmons concluded.
The manufacturing group launched the Manufacturers’ Accountability Project in recent months to track and help the business community push back against what it calls a “wave frivolous public nuisance lawsuits.”
