CARRBORO, N.C.— Duke Energy Corporation is sidestepping detailed allegations about its role in a decades-long campaign to deceive the public about the dangers of fossil fuels, worsening the climate crisis and costing a North Carolina town millions of dollars in damages, according to a legal filing today from the town of Carrboro.
Today’s brief, filed in Orange County Superior Court in Hillsborough, responds to Duke Energy’s motion to dismiss the town’s December lawsuit, which is the first to challenge an electric power provider for climate deception. The lawsuit seeks to hold Duke Energy accountable for the damages inflicted on Carrboro and its residents by the corporation’s decades of deception campaigns to delay the transition to renewable energy.
“Duke Energy’s deceptions about fossil fuel-driven climate change have cost the town dearly. Our utility bills are rising, our roadways will need repair, and extreme weather is creating havoc in our community,” said Carrboro Mayor Barbara Foushee. “Carrboro has been and will continue to work hard to invest all available resources into building a stronger, more climate-resilient community and to hold Duke Energy accountable.”
The town’s brief says the court should reject Duke Energy’s motion to dismiss the case and it details how the company’s deception campaigns led to Carrboro’s costs. It also explains that the case is similar to many others in North Carolina and around the country where courts have found corporations responsible for their misconduct.
“Duke Energy is grasping at legal straws to hide its decades-long campaign of climate deception,” said Jean Su, energy justice director and senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Duke Energy executives put profits over people and the planet, as they used deceptions to build one of the world’s worst climate polluting corporations. Now they should be held accountable for saddling the town with a costlier, dirtier, riskier future.”
The town is on the hook for millions of dollars in road repairs, rising energy bills and other infrastructure costs to adapt to and mitigate harms from climate change. The lawsuit says Duke Energy is responsible for these damages because the energy corporation knew its campaigns to obstruct the transition to renewable energy and mislead the public would accelerate the climate crisis.
In a motion to dismiss the case, Duke Energy made many arguments that have been rejected by other courts in similar climate accountability cases. These include incorrectly claiming that the town lacked authority to bring the case and that the court lacked authority to hear it.
The corporation is also seeking to deny the town’s First Amendment right to associate with the local environmental nonprofit NC WARN.
“Carrboro’s case looks even stronger after Duke Energy has dodged or distorted all the key allegations,” said Jim Warren, executive director of NC WARN. “As with the tobacco industry scandal, they can’t afford to admit Duke’s executives have helped lead such a widely damaging conspiracy of deception for all these years.”
Duke Energy, the third-largest polluting corporation in the U.S., has spent millions on industry front groups and public relations firms to deceive the public about the science of climate change, the town’s lawsuit said.
Duke Energy provides electricity to 8.2 million customers across six states, including nearly all of North Carolina as well as parts of South Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky. One of the largest electric power providers, the utility emitted roughly 80 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2021.
Eleven attorneys general and dozens of municipal and Tribal governments across the country have filed lawsuits to hold major oil and gas companies accountable for deceiving the public about fossil fuels’ role in climate change. Judges in several jurisdictions — including the Hawaii Supreme Court and last month in Washington, D.C.’s Superior Court — have rejected the fossil fuel industry’s efforts to dismiss climate accountability cases.
In October Oregon’s Multnomah County, which includes Portland, added the regional gas provider NW Natural to its 2023 lawsuit against fossil fuel corporations for their role in the area’s fatal 2021 heat dome.
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