Native Village of Kivalina v. Exxon Mobil Corporation.

The Alaskan village of Kivalina brought a lawsuit against two dozen energy and utility companies alleging that global climate change traceable to the defendants had led to the loss of the Arctic sea ice protecting the village from winter storms, and that the resulting erosion had threatened the habitability of the village. claimants asserted that defendants' greenhouse gas emissions resulted in warmer winters, which lead to melting of sea ice and erosion of the shoreline around their community to the point that their village was set to fall into the sea. They brought suit against oil and gas companies, electric utilities and a coal company, seeking damages for an alleged nuisance. Plaintiffs did not seek injunctive relief, but instead sought damages for the cost of relocating the village. The district court in the Northern District of California dismissed this state and federal common law nuisance suit. The court found that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction, pursuant to the “political question” doctrine. The court found that the “allocation of fault – and cost – of global warming is a matter appropriately left for determination by the executive or legislative branch in the first instance.” The court observed that the plaintiffs’ claim of nuisance “requires the judiciary to make a policy decision about who should bear the cost of global warming. Though alleging that Defendants are responsible for a ‘substantial portion’ of greenhouse emissions, [] Plaintiffs also acknowledge that virtually everyone on Earth is responsible on some level for contributing to such emissions. Yet, by pressing this lawsuit, Plaintiffs are in effect asking this Court to make a political judgment that the two dozen Defendants . . . should be the only ones to bear the cost of contributing to global warming.” The court further found that plaintiffs lacked standing, in light of the tenuous causal connection they alleged between the defendants’ conduct and plaintiffs’ claimed injuries: “Plaintiffs’ . . . pleadings make[] clear that there is no realistic possibility of tracing any particular alleged effect of global warming to any particular emissions by any specific person, entity, group at any particular point in time . . . it is not plausible to state which emissions – emitted by whom and at what time in the last several centuries and at what place in the world – ‘caused’ Plaintiffs’ alleged global warming related injuries.” Plaintiffs have appealed the dismissal to the Ninth Circuit.