When the Supreme Court returns for its new term on Monday, the first case it will hear is Suncor Energy v. Boulder County, which asks whether state and local governments may use state tort laws to impose liability on American companies for the effects of global climate change.
Boulder County and the city of Boulder sued Suncor and Exxon Mobil in a Colorado court, claiming their community has been harmed by global climate change. The plaintiffs seek damages for local harms. Liability would be based not on the company’s actions in Colorado but on the extent its worldwide production and sale of fuels are found to have contributed to greenhouse gases in the global atmosphere. A trial would give a local jury the authority to determine what share of global climate change each American company should be held responsible for. It is part of a wave of such litigation by left-leaning states and localities that aim at bankrupting fossil-fuel companies.