{"id":1070,"date":"2018-02-20T14:11:53","date_gmt":"2018-02-20T19:11:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeaftercarbon.net\/?p=1070"},"modified":"2018-03-22T17:44:44","modified_gmt":"2018-03-22T21:44:44","slug":"might-cities-liable-not-adapting-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in4c.net\/2018\/02\/might-cities-liable-not-adapting-climate-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Might Cities Be Liable for Not Adapting to Climate Change?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When three coastal communities in California sued 36 energy companies that generated\u00a0nearly 20 percent of all industrial carbon dioxide emissions between 1965 and 2015, they based their claims on the companies&#8217; deceptions about the effects of GHG emissions and the risks that families and businesses in the communities \u00a0now face from sea level rise. &#8220;It is the fossil fuel industry that has known for nearly 50 years that their products were dangerous and would cause the exact kinds of consequences we are all suffering today.&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/in4c.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Climate-Law-Suit-Backgrounder.pdf\">See Short Backgrounder<\/a><\/p>\n<p>But what about the potential liability of communities? What if there are scientific projections of the damage that will result from climate changes if nothing is done&#8211;and the city does nothing. Might the city be liable for not acting when it had an obvious, affirmative obligation to act? It would be hard anymore for cities to claim &#8220;they didn&#8217;t know&#8221; there was a problem.\u00a0Could the city be sued&#8211;not just by those who lose property, health, or life, but also in anticipation of the potential destruction?<\/p>\n<p>Could potential financial liability for not acting serve as a lever to get more cities to get serious about climate adaptation planning and implementation?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<span class=\"et_bloom_bottom_trigger\"><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When three coastal communities in California sued 36 energy companies that generated\u00a0nearly 20 percent of all industrial carbon dioxide emissions between 1965 and 2015, they based their claims on the companies&#8217; deceptions about the effects of GHG emissions and the risks that families and businesses in the communities \u00a0now face from sea level rise. &#8220;It [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1074,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cities","category-adaptation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in4c.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in4c.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in4c.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in4c.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in4c.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1070"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/in4c.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1075,"href":"https:\/\/in4c.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1070\/revisions\/1075"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in4c.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in4c.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in4c.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in4c.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}