Charleston P&C: City's climate suit vs. Big Oil fades, for now. "Missed opportunity says one critic.
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Charleston's battle against 'Big Oil' sputters out behind closed doors after yearslong lawsuit
CHARLESTON — A yearslong legal saga that saw the city of Charleston try to hold major oil companies to account for their alleged role in the city’s climate change-induced flooding woes quietly came to a close earlier this month.
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In August, Charleston County Circuit Judge Roger Young tossed out the city’s 2020 suit against the 24 named oil companies. The corporations argued the city didn’t have the legal grounds to bring the suit and only the federal government can regulate emissions.
City council had until Sept. 5 to appeal Young’s decision. They did not.
City spokesperson Deja Knight McMillan said the mayor and council met in executive session at their August meeting, shortly after Young ended the case. After receiving advice from the city’s legal team, she said they decided not to appeal. Legal counsel on lawsuits is one of the exemptions where council member are allowed to meet behind closed doors.
Had they decided to appeal the decision, she said the debate would have then been brought before the public.
“I'm glad we got in the arena because the fact of the matter is Charleston needs to lead on climate action,” said Belvin Olasov, director of the Charleston Climate Coalition, although he said that letting the case die without an appeal was a “missed opportunity” — even if the case was ultimately defeated.
“ It seems to me that the city of Charleston is missing out on the chance to show climate leadership,” he said. “We need to be proudly saying the city of Charleston is in this fight.”
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration anticipates sea levels near Charleston to rise roughly one foot by 2050, a trend driven by greenhouse gas emissions. Those rising seas likely will trigger more frequent and severe sunny day tidal flooding, even as warmer oceans potentially fuel a new generation of climate change-powered hurricanes.
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Charleston already is feeling the heat of a warming world. The city experienced 54 tidal floods last year, according to the National Weather Service. While that’s relatively fewer floods compared to the prior two years, it’s still more than the city experienced in the entire period from late 1921 to 1958. (The first full record years.)
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The city’s suit sought to essentially obtain financial damages for the destruction caused by those events, among other climate change-fueled challenges, The Post and Courier previously reported.
“ When you're dealing with a crisis like this, where it is a question of how do we find billions and billions of dollars to adapt and to deal with what's coming — we have to look around every corner,” Olasov said.
Charleston currently is weighing many projects aimed at adapting to rising seas. The largest among those is a $1.3 billion seawall that seeks to protect the low-lying peninsula. The cost of that project would be split between the federal government and Charleston, with the city on the hook for about $455 million.
Jonah Chester covers flooding, sea level rise and climate change for the Post and Courier's Rising Waters Lab.