King County v. BP p.l.c.

On May 9, 2018, King County in Washington State filed a public nuisance and trespass action in Washington Superior Court against the world’s five largest investor-owned fossil fuel companies. The County asserted that the companies’ “production and promotion of massive quantities of fossil fuels, and their promotion of those fossil fuels’ pervasive use” created a public nuisance of “global warming-induced sea level rise and other climate change hazards.” The County contended that the companies were individually and collectively “substantial contributors” to global warming who promoted the use of fossil fuels despite knowing “for many years that global warming threatened severe and ever catastrophic harms to coastal areas like King County.” The County also contended that the companies knew that their actions would cause invasions of King County property due to sea level rise and storm surge. The County alleged that it was already experiencing climate change impacts, including “warming temperatures, acidifying marine waters, rising seas, increasing flooding risk, decreasing mountain snowpack, and less water in the summer,” that rising sea levels posed an imminent threat of storm surge flooding that could inundate portions of the county, and that the County would be required to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to build infrastructure to protect King County and its residents. The County sought an order of abatement requiring the companies to fund a climate change adaptation program for the County as well as compensatory damages for the costs the County had already incurred.