A Supreme Court case in Hawaii could raise gas costs for us all

Aloha spirit be damned, the Hawaii Supreme Court has deemed the oil industry unwelcome in the state.In a ruling late last year, the court affirmed that the city of Honolulu could file a lawsuit alleging that Sunoco, Exxon, ConocoPhillips, and an assortment of other companies have caused it injury via their products’ greenhouse gas emissions.

Now it may be up to the US Supreme Court to set the matter straight: Is climate change an area of special federal interest or can states give Big Oil the boot? If the latter, the outcome from 50 new sets of legal hoops is inevitably higher energy prices for all Americans.Honolulu’s core claim is that the oil companies’ “efforts between 1965 and the present to deceive about the consequences of the normal use of their fossil fuel products” constitute tortious conduct.” The chain of reasoning is that Sunoco et al have marketed and sold products that, when combusted, emit carbon dioxide and other gasses, exacerbating the greenhouse effect, warming the planet, melting glaciers, and causing sea levels to rise.That rising water, the argument goes, has caused “historical, projected, and committed disruptions to the environment — and consequent injuries to the City.”Honolulu’s claim underscores how difficult climate damage attribution really is.

Yes, emissions add incrementally to sea level rise.But, no, we cannot attribute with confidence a portion of the cost of managing rising water to particular companies.

According to the US government’s Interagency Sea Level Task Force, the Hawaiian Islands are expected to experience 6-8 inches of sea level rise by 2050.That will surely require some coastal adaptation measures, as Honolulu says.

But what the City is slower to acknowledge is that factors other than sea level rise are playing a part in its troubles too — including its own land use and the unlucky fact that Hawaii’s volcanic geology is resulting in the islands sagging lower year by year.Mercifully, the Su...