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Welcome to Dispatch Energy! Since the Democrat-led Congress in 2009 tried and failed to pass a cap on carbon emissions, climate activists and policy entrepreneurs have come up with a number of creative ways to impose limits on fossil fuel consumption by other means. These included the misguided but relatively inoffensive civil protests against projects like the Keystone XL pipeline and the anti-Big Oil #ExxonKnew public relations campaign. But more recently, advocates have advanced a wave of coordinated lawsuits against oil and gas companies and the government regulators who have failed to bring the industry to heel.
These “climate liability” suits have reached as far as the appellate court system. In 2024, the 9th Circuit heard, and dismissed, the famous children’s climate lawsuit that argued for a constitutional “right to a stable climate.” More recently, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Suncor Energy v. Boulder County, a suit filed against Suncor Energy and Exxon attempting to hold the oil and gas companies liable for damages associated with climate change. A ruling in that case is expected next year, with implications for more than 3,000 similar suits filed by activist groups, attorneys general, and other plaintiffs.
