The country needs real climate change solutions, not climate lawsuits
Tackling climate change has been an emerging challenge for nearly a century, hashed out across government agencies, at kitchen tables and even by Hollywood. From Congressional legislation to speeches on the campaign trail, government officials have become the leading champions for addressing changing climate.
The robust debate dates to the start of my career — in the Nixon administration — with the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970 to create public and private protections for the environment. During that time, the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan — then a domestic policy adviser — famously wrote a memo warning about the dangers of climate change.
In pop culture, who can forget the iconic 1991 Cheers episode where Cliff Clavin warns bar patrons the East Coast is sinking? Or 1995’s The American President , in which Michael Douglas, as fictional President Andrew Shepherd, discusses legislation acknowledging the threat of climate change?
The bottom line is the American public and the political establishment have been surrounded by climate risk warnings spanning decades. Americans have engaged in intense discussions and their elected leaders have debated about how to make meaningful change in a realistic way. So why are some officials at the same time trying to punish energy producers for providing a highly demanded product and accusing them of deceiving the public about the consequences of climate change?
Since 2017, mayors, county commissioners and state attorney generals have filed close to 30 climate lawsuits. Even in my hometown of Annapolis, city officials filed a lawsuit last year accusing energy producers of allegedly concealing information about climate change. Most of these cases have fallen on deaf judicial ears, but in September, the U.S. District Court of Maryland directed the Annapolis lawsuit, and a near mirror-image complaint filed by Anne Arundel County, to proceed in state court.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to decide whether it will join the action, as defendants in the Boulder, Colorado, and Baltimore climate lawsuits have asked the high court whether federal or state courts should hear their lawsuits. The Supreme Court has sought the Biden administration’s opinion, a somewhat rare move that could help clarify how courts handle these cases and other climate lawsuits.
Regardless of which court hears them, such lawsuits are riddled with flaws.
First, in Annapolis and elsewhere, flooding and waterfront erosion are simply some of the many inherent hazards of living in a coastal region. They were not caused by one factor — whether that’s climate change or natural weather events. Climate change is a global occurrence, with the considerable greenhouse gas emissions from China and India just as responsible for the local impacts we witness in Annapolis as domestic causes. Since climate change is taking place globally, it defies logic for American energy companies to be forced to foot the bill for emissions from outside U.S. borders.
Second, the plaintiffs’ so-called deception allegations lack merit. In the Annapolis case, city officials claimed energy companies knew something the plaintiffs and public did not “for nearly half a century” and alleged the companies withheld from the public the effects of their energy products.
These claims are implausible, as the potential link between fossil fuel use and climate change was reported in the early 1950s. National media has reported, and the federal government has studied, the link between carbon dioxide emissions, climate change and commercial activity dating to that time.
For Annapolis, energy companies produce the fossil fuels city residents use to live on the coast, travel, shop and cool and heat our homes. The same fossil fuel products enable tourists to visit our harbor and sustain our economy along Main Street. Federal data verifies that Maryland consumes natural gas more than any other fuel source, making clear our state relies heavily on fossil fuels.
In a recent filing, Chevron points to many of these facts and shoots down the contention that the industry “had some unique knowledge about climate science and withheld it or misrepresented it in some way that impacted policy responses and consumer choices.”
The filing notes every president since Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s has debated the merits of acting on climate policy. Congress has also extensively focused on this issue, holding 246 Congressional hearings on climate change involving 1,595 congressional testimonies between 1976 and 2007. Ultimately, the case for deception falls apart.
In the end, it is impossible to point fingers at one industry or company for providing a product everyone demands, one promoted by our government to power our schools and hospitals, and turn on the lights at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. We should work together to utilize available resources and continue innovating real solutions to protect our environment. Officials in Annapolis with their frivolous lawsuit do not bring us anywhere closer to solutions to address our global climate challenge.
Theodore “Ted” J. Garrish, a resident of Annapolis, Maryland, previously served as General Counsel and as Assistant Secretary for International Affairs at the Department of Energy. While at DOE, Garrish was Vice Chair of the International Energy Agency in Paris. Mr. Garrish has spent over five decades in the public and private sector focused on energy policy.