Honolulu: Oil Giants Say Hawaii's Climate Suit Belongs With Lawmakers in Court Hearing
Honolulu — In Honolulu, Honolulu County, Hawaii, more than a dozen lawyers for the world's largest oil companies and industry groups appeared in court on October 20, arguing that Hawaii's climate lawsuit against the oil giants should be decided by lawmakers, not the courts. The state accuses BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil and other companies of misleading the public for decades about the harms of burning fossil fuels.
Theodore Boutrous, representing Chevron and arguing for all of the defendants, told First Circuit Court Judge Jordon Kimura that the state is in substance asking the court to decide how much fossil fuel the world should burn; climate policy since the 1980s has been weighed by legislatures and governors balancing fuel needs against climate concerns, he said, making it a “political question.” He also noted that the state itself argued in the youth climate case, Navahine, that climate change is a political question — in his words, “political question doctrine for me, but not for thee.”
Judge Kimura expressed skepticism: deciding whether an advertisement was misleading and whether the companies had a duty to warn does not require the court to set emissions targets — a point Boutrous conceded in court. The judge also said the state's complaint can proceed under Hawaii's liberal pleading standards and rejected the argument that no one can trace the emissions that harmed Hawaii to their sources. The judge did not rule on the day. (GSM, based on Courthouse News Service)
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: Wikimedia Commons CC0 / Christian Joudrey
