21/04/2018

South Australia's Famed Wine Regions Preparing For The Squeeze Of Climate Change

ABC News - Simon Royal

Winemaker Wayne Farquhar inspects grapes in his Barossa Valley vineyard. (ABC News: Tony Hill)
Wayne Farquhar bought his first Barossa Valley vineyard in the 1970s. He had a very practical reason for doing so.
"I don't like drinking beer at all," Mr Farquhar said. "I grew up drinking wine and I wanted to make my own."
In his time he's seen growing conditions become more unpredictable.
It's reinforced his concern climate change may threaten some Barossa wine drinkers' favourite drops.
"We still have pockets of Chardonnay, we've got pockets of Riesling, we have Roussanne and Marsanne," Mr Farquhar said.
"I think that they are going to fade away, and there's even potential for Shiraz. It's one of our earliest ripening varieties.
"We just don't know what climate change is going to do to Shiraz.
"It would be a shame to lose our icon wine, but who knows what's around the corner."
However wine buffs and barbeque quaffers alike need not panic or worse, in Mr Farquhar's view, contemplate beer.
He believes there's a future — not with traditional cool climate grape varieties, but hotter ones.

Region's recalibration inspired by Portugal and Spain
Amputated vines in a vineyard in South Australia's Barossa Valley. (ABC News: Tony Hill)
On the western edge of the valley, Mr Farquhar has built a vine propagation business and a wine label based on that belief.
"Despite what many Australians might think, the Barossa is by no means the hottest place where grapes are grown," Mr Farquhar said.
"The Iberian peninsula, Portugal and Spain, across Tunisia, the southern parts of Italy.
"They are much hotter, and with less annual rainfall than us, and they've been growing grapes there for thousands of years. That's where we need to be looking."
The Barossa would lose its German accent and gain a Latin one.
At his cellar door in Greenock, Mr Farquhar cracks open a bottle of Arinto, a Portuguese white variety he pioneered in Australia.
"Smell this, isn't it just gorgeous?" he enthused.
"Now that's much more interesting than any old Sauvignon Blanc, don't you think?"
He expects to have six new Portuguese reds gracing Australian tables within three years.

Man with 'fruit salad block'
Winemaker Wayne Farquhar bought his first Barossa Valley vineyard in the 1970s. (ABC News: Tony Hill)
But it's not so much Mr Farquhar's advocacy of new varieties that raises eyebrows — it's the way he raises vines.
They look nothing like a traditional vineyard, with its widely spaced trunks, two lateral branches, masses of fruit, and lots of leaves.
Mr Farquhar's vines have just one lateral branch, and even that's chopped in half.
The individual vines are barely a quarter the usual size and produce much less fruit.
But they are so densely planted Mr Farquhar said he ends up with more fruit, and quality, per hectare.
It also dramatically slashes water use.
All up, the winemaker grows 65 different grape varieties on 15 hectares. Traditionalists can't resist a bit of fun at his expense.
"They call me the crazy man with the fruit salad block," Mr Farquhar chuckled.
'We have to plan for climate change'
But the Barossa zone winemaker is not the only one planning for an unpredictable future.
Jeff Grosset has been making wine in South Australia's Clare Valley for 37 years, in a region famed for its Riesling.
"The harvest is now on average a month earlier than it used to be, when I first came here," Mr Grosset said.
"That trend of almost one day per year is pretty much universal across premium regions in the world.
"I have no doubt we have to plan for climate change."
Jeff Grosset believes climate change will have profound effects on production. (ABC News: Simon Royal)
It's a lot more complex though than hopping on a plane, going somewhere hot, grabbing some new varieties, bringing them home, shoving them in the ground and thinking that fixes the future.
Because of the dangers of introduced disease, vines are deemed a high-risk import.
It can take two years for them just to clear quarantine, and they don't come with a guarantee to grow.
"We planted two varieties, Fiano — a white variety — and Aglianico, both from the south of Italy. One has worked really well and the other one didn't," Mr Grosset said, gesturing to a bare patch of land where the doomed vines once stood.
"Let's just call it 'research and development', though it's better when it ends in success rather than failure."
Along with a good palate, what a winemaker needs most is patience.
"It's a really, really long process," Mr Farquhar said.
"Realistically, it takes anywhere from six to seven years before you finally get the product into the bottle."
The future is unpredictable, but one thing is clear — when it comes to wine, it's already starting to taste different.

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Schwarzenegger To Sue Big Oil For ‘First Degree Murder’

POLITICO - 

At SXSW (South by Southwest Festival), the former California governor lets loose on climate change, Donald Trump and gives his first in-depth remarks on #MeToo.
Paul Kane/Getty Images
AUSTIN, Texas — Arnold Schwarzenegger’s next mission: taking oil companies to court “for knowingly killing people all over the world.”
The former California governor and global environmental activist announced the move Sunday at a live recording of POLITICO’s Off Message podcast here at the SXSW festival, revealing that he’s in talks with several private law firms and preparing a public push around the effort.


“This is no different from the smoking issue. The tobacco industry knew for years and years and years and decades, that smoking would kill people, would harm people and create cancer, and were hiding that fact from the people and denied it. Then eventually they were taken to court and had to pay hundreds of millions of dollars because of that,” Schwarzenegger said. “The oil companies knew from 1959 on, they did their own study that there would be global warming happening because of fossil fuels, and on top of it that it would be risky for people’s lives, that it would kill.”
Schwarzenegger said he’s still working on a timeline for filing, but the news comes as he prepares to help host a major environmental conference in May in Vienna.
“We’re going to go after them, and we’re going to be in there like an Alabama tick. Because to me it’s absolutely irresponsible to know that your product is killing people and not have a warning label on it, like tobacco,” he said. “Every gas station on it, every car should have a warning label on it, every product that has fossil fuels should have a warning label on it.”
He argues that at the very least, this would raise awareness about fossil fuels and encourage people to look to alternative fuels and clean cars.
He added, “I don’t think there’s any difference: If you walk into a room and you know you’re going to kill someone, it’s first degree murder; I think it’s the same thing with the oil companies.”
Schwarzenegger was at SXSW for an extensive discussion of lessons he learned in his seven years as governor, and how he’d apply them to the current political situation in Washington and beyond. On the list: Maximize the bully pulpit; use the carrot but have the stick ready; and no one gets a perfect “10,“ because there’s always room for improvement. Those, he said, were part of his art of the deal, and explained how he’d been able to institute major laws from worker’s compensation reform to environmental standards to a state election overhaul to implement independent redistricting and a “jungle primary” system, in which the top two advance.
Schwarzenegger also addressed, for the first time since the national reawakening around the #MeToo moment, the charges of groping and inappropriate behavior that surfaced from multiple women against him at the end of his first campaign for governor in 2003. He acknowledged that the change in the moment made a huge difference.
“It is about time. I think it’s fantastic. I think that women have been used and abused and treated horribly for too long, and now all of the elements came together to create this movement, and now finally puts the spotlight on this issue, and I hope people learn from that,” he said. “You’ve got to take those things seriously. You’ve got to look at it and say, ‘I made mistakes. And I have to apologize.’”
He stressed the importance of sexual harassment training, like the one he made his staff do once he was elected— including himself.
“We make mistakes, and we don’t take it seriously. And then when you really think about it, you say, ‘Maybe I went too far,’” Schwarzenegger said. “You’ve got to be very sensitive about it, and you’ve got to think about the way that women feel—and if they feel uncomfortable, then you did not do the right thing.”
The past few months, he said “made me think totally differently,” adding, “I said to myself, ‘Finally.’”
Schwarzenegger took a number of shots at Donald Trump, dismissing the president’s latest attack on him, delivered at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday night, for having “failed when he did the show,” a reference to the former governor’s rocky one-season stint as the host of “The Apprentice” on NBC last year.
“I never know really why the Russians make him say certain things,” Schwarzenegger said. “It’s beyond me. Why do you think he says those things? He’s supposed to be very busy.”
Later in the interview, he returned to the attack on Trump, teasing that the script of the new “Terminator” movie, which Schwarzenegger is set to start filming in June and is expected to be released next year, had to be rewritten to include Trump. “The T-800 model that I play, he’s traveling back in time to 2019 to get Trump out of prison,” Schwarzenegger joked.
He wouldn’t reveal any actual details about the script other than that he is still the T-800 model. This isn’t his only upcoming foray into old film franchises: He’s due to shoot “King Conan” and “Triplets,” an update on the 1988 film “Twins,” with Eddie Murphy as the third brother. (“There’s something funny there with the mixing of the sperm,” he said.)
Schwarzenegger said he’d like to see Ohio Gov. John Kasich run for president but urged him to run in the Republican primary rather than as an independent.
“He’s a great Republican,” Schwarzenegger said.
But he said don’t expect him to be a major campaign presence in 2020. He’ll be focusing on pushing gerrymandering reform, and has gotten involved again with California Republicans, with whom he’ll be meeting in the coming days back home.
“The Republicans that are the new thinking Republicans in California want to get things done,” Schwarzenegger said, adding that he wants elected officials to remember, “ultimately, you are a public servant, not a party servant.”
He urged the GOP to pay attention to what happened in California, where Democrats have become completely dominant. Republicans there, he said, “are stuck with an ideology that doesn’t really fit anymore with what people want.”
He cited the environmental work of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush as examples.
“Today, those are all things that are absolutely a no-no in the Republican Party. I didn’t change; it’s the Republican Party that’s changed,” he said. “Now we have to work very hard to get the party back to where it was.”
Back at the end of his presidency, Bill Clinton wrote Schwarzenegger a long letter that ended with Clinton urging Schwarzenegger to become a Democrat. Schwarzenegger said he wasn’t interested then, and isn’t interested now, for all his problems with Trump and the current GOP.
“That’s a fun letter, and I like supporting him on some issues,” Schwarzenegger said. “But the bottom line is that I’m a Republican, and I’m a true Republican, and I will always be a Republican. It’s a fantastic party, but they’ve veered off into the right into some strange lanes.”

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Victoria Demands New Detailed Analysis On NEG After COAG Meeting

The Guardian - 

Meeting on Friday between energy ministers almost derailed by disagreement over how Energy Security Board should proceed
The issues Victoria wants addressed include treatment of renewable energy schemes and targets. Photograph: Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The Victorian energy minister Lily D’Ambrosio has written to the Energy Security Board asking for new detailed analysis to be provided on the national energy guarantee, as the stand off between the Turnbull government and the states over energy policy shifts into its decisive phase.
The federal energy minister Josh Frydenberg secured agreement on Friday for further work to be done on the NEG, but the process was almost derailed by a backroom skirmish about the riding instructions for the Energy Security Board before a critical meeting in August.
The Energy Security Board was established last year by the Commonwealth and the states to provide advice about the proposed energy policy overhaul, and given it is a joint body, there has been sensitivity behind the scenes about who instructs it.
Victoria and Queensland wanted a detailed form of words recorded in a joint communique setting out specific lines of inquiry for the Energy Security Board to pursue before the COAG energy council reconvenes in August for a meeting that will either tick or torpedo the policy – but Frydenberg refused.
The argument played out at a private dinner the ministers attended in Melbourne before Friday’s meeting.
The wording of the joint communique distributed after Friday’s meeting is entirely non-specific, saying the Energy Security Board “will consult with jurisdictions on the specific details of the design” and the meeting “noted that the states have raised issues that will require further work ahead of the August meeting”.
Victoria has now written to the Energy Security Board setting out the issues Labor states want addressed, including the treatment of their renewable energy schemes and targets, and the consequences of future adjustment to the proposed emissions reduction target of 26% on 2005 levels by 2030.
The letter, seen by Guardian Australia, sets out five specific lines of inquiry, including the impact of the targets and their interaction, and the impact of scaleability of the national target; ensuring that regulators have sufficient powers to ensure compliance with the emissions reduction obligations; ensuring competition concerns are addressed; and seeking more detail about how the NEG will work with pre-existing concepts like the strategic reserve in the national energy market.
The whole subject of emissions reduction, and all the components required to achieve it, is a deeply sensitive issue within the federal Coalition, and Frydenberg has insisted Canberra will unilaterally determine those elements of the policy.
While welcoming Friday’s progress, Frydenberg made it entirely clear that the Commonwealth would not be budging on the 26% – a figure both the Labor states and many experts argue is entirely inadequate.
Data released this week on renewables compiled by Green Energy Markets and funded by the progressive activist group GetUp suggests the NEG will deliver no meaningful emissions reductions in its own right because the capacity of renewable projects now under construction already exceeds what is required to achieve the 2030 NEG target.
The federal energy minister also insisted that any emissions reduction undertaken at the state level would count in the national target. That issue, the relationship between the national target and the state schemes, is a major source of conflict with some state governments.
Frydenberg declined to say whether or not energy companies would be allowed to lower their emissions by the purchase of offsets, which some of the jurisdictions don’t support.
“We remain open on the issue,” Frydenberg said. “I’m not going into further detail on it other than to say we retain an open mind on the issue of permits.”
Energy ministers will participate in a telephone hook up in June to check progress before the Energy Security Board produces a detailed design of the scheme in July, and the COAG energy council reconvenes in August.
Despite the continuing flash points, and the fact several states are refusing to sign on in the absence of detail, Frydenberg is sounding upbeat about the chances of landing a deal on the policy in August.
“I am confident that all the issues that were discussed today and last night with the ministers can [be worked] through, and that we can land a position in August which is in the national interest,” Frydenberg told reporters after the meeting.
“From the Turnbull government’s perspective, from the Commonwealth’s perspective, the national energy guarantee is Australia’s best chance to integrate energy and climate policy and deliver cheaper, cleaner, more reliable power to all Australians.”
“If we don’t seize this opportunity, what we will see is higher prices, lower reliability, and more expensive government interventions, and that is not a positive way forward for our country.”

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20/04/2018

'Cooked': Study Finds Great Barrier Reef Transformed By Mass Bleaching

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

Corals in the Great Barrier Reef have a lower tolerance to heat stress than expected, contributing to a permanent transformation of the mix of species in some of most pristine regions, a team of international researchers has found.
The scientists examined the impact of the 2016 marine heatwave that alone caused the death of about one-third of the Great Barrier Reef corals, mostly centred on the northern third section.
They studied how much abnormal heat triggers bleaching, the additional heat that killed the corals, and the accumulation needed to cause "an ecological collapse in the transformation of species", said Terry Hughes, Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University, and the lead of author of the paper published Thursday in Nature.
The thresholds "are lower than we thought they would be", Professor Hughes told Fairfax Media.
Bleaching in the northern part of the Great Barrier Reef in 2016 triggered widespread mortality of corals within weeks, scientists found. Photo: AAP
A key guide is the number of so-called degree-heating weeks (DHW), such as waters a degree above average for a certain period. If reefs had DHWs of six or more - as about 29 per cent of the reefs suffered - the loss of corals reached 60-90 per cent, Professor Hughes said.
Some species, such as staghorns and tabular corals, were particularly susceptible, while dome-shaped porites corals were relatively resilient.
"The 2016 marine heatwave has triggered the initial phase of that transition [to heat-tolerant reef assemblages] on the northern, most pristine region of the Great Barrier Reef, changing it forever as the intensity of global warming continues to escalate," the paper said.
The fact the northern section - with fewer people, little fishing and almost no water quality issues - was hit so hard was notable.
"There’s almost nowhere to hide from extreme temperatures," Professor Hughes said. "Even the best-managed, most remote place is vulnerable.”
The Nature paper is one of a series being prepared or already published by Professor Hughes and colleagues at James Cook University that examine the unprecedented back-to-back mass bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef in the summers of 2016 and 2017.
Upcoming papers will examine the impacts of the latter event - which mainly hammered the middle section of the Reef - and the scope for recovery.
Fish species are adjusting to the mass mortality of corals - some better than others. Photo: University of Wollongong
Just as coral species responded differently to the heat stress, so too have fish species that depend on them.
Butterfly fish, for instance, feed on only a couple of coral species. “If their diet disappears, so do they," Professor Hughes said. Parrot fish, though, eat mostly seaweed, and will fare better.
Still, most fish depend on branching corals as a nursery - the type of corals that suffered high mortality in the heatwave.
"People have long predicted there will be significant fisheries impact from losing juvenile habitat and we expect that to unfold over the next five years," Professor Hughes said.
Most of what researchers know about reef recovery has come from the study of the aftermath of cyclones.
Such events, though, tend to carve a swathe through the reef, perhaps 50 to 100 kilometres wide, with patchier damage than mass bleaching. Coral larvae come into the void from either side, typically taking a decade for branching corals to recover.
“The scale of the damage from back-to-back bleaching is vastly bigger," Professor Hughes said. "We don’t know yet where the larvae are going to come from, and in what numbers.”

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A Decade Of Lost Opportunities

Sydney Morning Herald - Editorial

Back in 2007, Kevin Rudd famously declared climate change ''the great moral challenge of our generation''. Moral or not, that challenge has been met in the intervening years with policy paralysis and blame-shifting. And like a political grim reaper, it has cut a swathe through the leadership of the major parties.
As the fire front approaches an RFS crew asseses the perimeter at Barden Ridge, Sydney. Photo: Kate Geraghty
During this whole lost decade of fighting the ''climate wars'' rather than climate change, the challenge has only become steeper. Under the 2015 Paris climate deal, Australia agreed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 26 per cent by 2030. Yet Australia's carbon pollution has risen in each of the past five years.
And if that is not a sufficient wake-up call, how about the fact our bushfire season this year looks like stretching to Anzac Day?
The good news is that an end is in sight, just possibly, to this dismal period of politics being allowed to trump the national and global interest. On Friday, Federal Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg will meet his state counterparts in Canberra for a Council of Australian Governments meeting that will decide if work is to continue on the Turnbull Government's National Energy Guarantee.
The NEG is far from perfect but it is the most promising compromise that has appeared for a long time on the horizon of the interlocking climate and energy debates. It imposes a twin obligation on energy retailers to reduce carbon emissions and at the same time maintain reliability standards. If it works properly, it promises to drive investment in baseload energy supply, support the transition to renewables, prevent avoidable blackouts, and short-circuit soaring household energy bills.
But obstacles remain and COAG is one of them. Thanks to political leaders at all levels placing loyalty to their party above their constituencies, COAG has frequently been the place where reform goes to die. There is almost always an election looming up somewhere to derail bipartisanship and the present moment is no exception, with Victoria, NSW, and possibly the Commonwealth all set to go to the polls over the next 12 months.
On the other side of the ledger, Steven Marshall's recent South Australian Liberal victory removes one obstacle, in the form of that state's headlong rush to renewables under former Premier Jay Weatherill.
The most promising sign of all is that federal Labor is edging towards the NEG tent. Labor wants deeper cuts to emissions than those agreed under Paris but has realised the NEG, far from being an obstacle, may be a tool towards achieving those cuts. This is because, with parliamentary backing, the emissions targets under the NEG could be ratcheted up under a future Government. Other imperfections of the scheme – including too-intermittent reviews, or the possibility states could be punished for pursuing more ambitious targets – could likewise be rectified.
A breakthrough on the NEG would be a major victory for Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, as well as burnishing Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg's future leadership credentials. But Labor leader Bill Shorten could also gain stature by showing he is capable of recognising a moment when real progress beckons and grasping it. Such sweet reasonableness could even become a template for tackling the unanswered problem of how to reduce greenhouse emissions in other parts of the economy without imposing unnecessary costs and hitting jobs.
So let's be clear: if ever there was a time for state and federal political leaders to rise above partisanship, this is it.

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Renewable Energy Capacity Set To Exceed Target Federal Government Said Was Impossible

ABC News - Stephen Letts

Renewable energy capacity of 41,000GWh was deemed to be "impossible", but is now in reach. (Fabrizio Bensch, file photo: Reuters)
Key points
  • Renewable energy capacity is set to exceed 41,000GWh by 2020, a level the coalition government deemed as impossible before it slashed the RET
  • Market already delivered the government's 2030 emission reduction target, rendering the NEG meaningless: Green Energy Markets
  • Business-as-usual under the NEG will lead to 118 million tonne shortfall in the government's CO2 reduction commitment
Australia's renewable energy capacity is set to exceed a target the Federal Government said was impossible to reach by 2020, according to new research from Green Energy Markets.
In its quarterly Renewable Energy Index, GEM said the amount of renewable energy generated in 2020 was set to exceed the original 41,000 Gigawatt hour (GWh) Renewable Energy Target (RET) that was in place before being scrapped in 2015 by the federal government led by then prime minister Tony Abbott.
The original RET was put in place to help Australia meet its 2030 climate change commitment to cut emissions by 26 to 28 per cent from 2005 levels.
It was replaced by a less ambitious target of 33,000 GWh after the Abbott government characterised the original RET as impossible to achieve, while arguing there was already too much generating capacity.
The GEM study — funded by activist group GetUp — found estimated eligible generation would hit 41,381 GWh by 2020, not only exceeding the current RET, but the original RET as well.
"The Coalition's argument that we can't go any further than the target they've proposed without imposing some kind of huge economic shock and threat to reliability is obviously not true because we're pretty much already there," Green Energy Markets director Tristan Edis said.
"[Energy and Environment minister] Josh Frydenberg himself is saying that all the extra renewable energy that is about to enter the system will substantially push down power prices."
NEG 'meaningless': report
Mr Edis said the Government's National Energy Guarantee (NEG) would in effect deliver no meaningful emission reduction benefit, as projects already under construction and contracted exceed what is needed to achieve its established emission targets.
"According to economic modelling undertaken by Frontier Economics for the Energy Security Board, from 2017 onwards we'd need to install 9,271 megawatts [MW] of wind and solar in the NEM [National Electricity Market] to achieve the Government's 2030 emission reduction target," he said.
"Yet we already have 9,691 MW of projects that will be delivered in the NEM based on what has been committed to construction and what is being contracted under procurement processes currently underway."
Those commitments include 650MW from the GFG consortium to power the Whyalla Steelworks in South Australia, a 500MW wind expansion from AGL, renewable energy auctions conducted by the Victorian and Queensland governments and a series of other contracts drawn up by generators such as Origin and AGL.
"We have already achieved what the NEG said it would do, it doesn't add anything or do anything meaningful," Mr Edis said.
Huge shortfall in CO2 reduction remains
What is the Paris Agreement?
Here's a simple explanation of the agreement, and what it means for Australia.
Mr Edis said the NEG in its current form would deliver a result that is almost 120 million tonnes of carbon dioxide short of Australia's commitment to the 2030 Paris Agreement.
"The maths on the Government's emission target is pretty basic," Mr Edis said.
"According the latest emissions projections from the Government's own Department of Environment, the Government needs to find 128 million tonnes of CO2 abatement in 2030 to achieve its economy-wide 2030 Paris emissions target.
"Even if Frontier Economics' modelling was right, it means the NEG delivers just 10 million tonnes in 2030 compared to business as usual.
"Where the hell is the other 118 million going to come from?"
The Energy Reduction Fund is running low limiting the government's options in meeting its 2030 Paris accord commitments. (Brett Worthington)
Mr Edis said none of the options the Government had to make up the shortfall seemed likely to work.
"If the Government was to adopt the most stringent vehicle emission standard they've contemplated in their consultation paper — which is a big if — then the Government's own estimates are it would deliver 11.7 million in 2030.
"The Emission Reduction Fund is almost out of money.
"Agriculture? Somehow I can't see a Government made up of the Nationals regulating to control emissions from cows and sheep or land-clearing.
"They could pay for abatement but where's the money coming from?"

Record solar PV installation
The Renewable Energy Index found renewables accounted for 19.7 per cent of the electricity generated on Australia's main grids, or enough energy to power 8.7 million homes.
According to Green Energy Markets, rooftop solar installations in March were the highest monthly total ever, and over the first three months of the year are running at levels 50 per cent above those anticipated in economic modelling of the NEG.
"Households and businesses are continuing to install solar PV on rooftops at record rates in order to reduce their electricity bills. March installs set a new monthly record of 127 megawatts which will produce power equivalent to the consumption of 36,710 homes," the report said.
"On top of the underestimates of large scale renewables, it suggests that the emission reduction target could be substantially strengthened at minimal economic cost."

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18/04/2018

Latest Legal Fight Accusing Oil Companies Of Climate Change Launched In Colorado

Reuters - Sebastien Malo

The city of Boulder is one of the Colorado communities filing climate lawsuits, demanding Exxon and Suncor pay for climate impacts. Photo credit: Andrew Burton/Getty Images
NEW YORK - Three Colorado communities filed a lawsuit against oil companies on Tuesday, launching the latest legal battle seeking damages for what they claim are the costs of adapting to climate change.
The lawsuit, filed in Colorado by the city of Boulder and the counties of San Miguel and Boulder, accuses Suncor and Exxon Mobil Corp of creating a public nuisance by producing and selling fossil fuels that cause climate change.
Scientific consensus holds that carbon dioxide pollution from burning fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal is the main cause of climate change.
Suncor and Exxon “sold and promoted fossil fuels knowing that climate impacts were substantially certain to occur if unchecked fossil fuel use continued,” the communities said in the complaint.
Exxon spokesman Scott Silvestri called the lawsuit part of a misplaced effort to pin the global phenomenon of climate change on oil producers alone. Exxon is the world’s largest publicly traded oil producer.
“Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a global issue and requires global participation and actions,” he said in emailed comments.
A spokeswoman for Suncor, one of Canada’s biggest oil producers, said the company could not comment because it had not yet seen a copy of the lawsuit.
Both Exxon and Suncor have operations in Colorado, the complaint said.
The lawsuit is the latest in a growing body of legal action against oil companies over climate change.
However, earlier cases have been filed by coastal communities including California and New York, and this is the first to be brought in the nation’s interior, officials behind the lawsuit said.
Their region of Colorado is vulnerable to a wide range of climate threats, from droughts that imperil farming to warm winters that harm the ski industry, they said.
“Climate change is not just about sea level rise. It affects all of us in the middle of the country as well,” said Elise Jones, a Boulder County commissioner, in a statement.
The case is part of a growing trend, said Michael Burger, executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University in New York.
“This is now, I think, the tenth lawsuit of the sort that has been filed in the United States against fossil fuel companies seeking damages for costs associated with climate change impacts,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
In January, the San Francisco suburb of Richmond filed a similar climate change-related public nuisance lawsuit against 29 oil companies including Exxon.

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