Supreme Court Allows Hawai’i Climate and Oil Lawsuit to Proceed

The Supreme Court denied appeals from oil companies on Monday to halt a lawsuit from the city of Honolulu that aims to hold them accountable for climate change damage. Buried in a long list of orders, SCOTUS denied writs of certiorari in cases against Sunoco, Shell, and others.

The lawsuit, filed in 2020, was allowed to proceed in late 2023 by the Hawai’i Supreme Court. Early in 2024, oil companies appealed to SCOTUS to stop the suit, arguing that because emissions and climate change are a national issue they should reside in federal rather than state courts. Monday’s ruling means that argument didn’t hold water. Justice Samuel Alito recused himself from consideration in this case, for unstated reasons; he does own stock in relevant companies, but then again his relationship to “ethics” on the Court has been shaky at best, so who knows.

Hawai’i’s is one of a number of cases against Big Oil that are still proceeding through various levels of various courts, though it seems to be among the states where these things are moving the fastest. It was home to one of the first youth-led climate lawsuits to see a victory, when the state settled with a group of young people and acknowledged their right to a healthy environment. The oil industry suits are different, of course, not least because the defendants are some of the richest and most ruthless corporations in human history; but the SCOTUS ruling at least lays out a path forward here, even if the end result is still far from clear.