Climate activists regularly stress that the climate crisis is a national, indeed, global concern. Yet, there is an ever-growing campaign to hold energy producers liable under novel and yet-unrecognized legal theories that is principally being waged in highly localized settings: state courts.

Dozens of these climate change lawsuits, including Suncor Energy (U.S.A.) v. Board of County Commissioners of Boulder County, have been filed by city, county or state governments in recent years. They are fashioned as public nuisance or consumer fraud causes of action in state court against energy companies that produce or sell fossil fuels. The plaintiffs regularly are seeking billions in liability for, and abatement of, climate change impacts that, even according to the most ardent activists, are the result of a confluence of innumerable international actors.

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