The Village of Kivalina has asked a federal appeals court to rehear a case it lost last month alleging that some of the world’s biggest oil producers are to blame for the Alaskan community’s eroding coastline.
The village has asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit for an en banc rehearing against ExxonMobil, BP America Inc., AES Corp., Chevron Corp. and other energy giants. The lawsuit filed by the Inupiat Eskimo community, which has a population of about 400, alleged that the oil producers contributed to greenhouse gases that helped melt the sea ice that protected its coastline from powerful winter storms. The plaintiffs claimed that the entire village needs to move, at a cost of up to $400 million, to survive.
