Maryland judge scraps Baltimore’s climate case against oil industry

By Lesley Clark | 07/12/2024 06:17 AM EDT

The decision is a first-of-its-kind victory for oil companies facing legal claims that they misled the public about the dangers of burning fossil fuels.

Kids attempt to ride their bicycles in floodwater in the Fells Point area of Baltimore.

High tidal water brought by Hurricane Isabel flooded the inner harbor of Baltimore in September 2003. The city contends that the oil industry should pay up for contributing to rising global temperatures that worsen storms and disasters. Alex Wong/Getty Images

In a major victory for the fossil fuel industry, a state judge for the first time has tossed out a local government’s entire lawsuit seeking to hold oil companies financially accountable for climate change.

The ruling issued Wednesday by Judge Videtta Brown of the Baltimore City Circuit Court found that the Charm City’s 2018 challenge against BP and other oil producers “goes beyond the limits of Maryland state law.”

Baltimore’s lawsuit — like dozens of others like it nationwide — relied on state law to claim that the oil industry owes the city compensation for storms and disasters worsened by rising temperatures.

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But Brown said that Baltimore’s suit “requests damages for the cumulative impact of conduct occurring simultaneously across just about every jurisdiction on the planet.”

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