N.C. Judge Dismisses Carrboro’s Climate Lawsuit Against Duke Energy, Citing Political Question Doctrine

Overview

• Citing the political question doctrine, North Carolina Business Court Judge Mark Davis dismissed Carrboro’s case in a 32-page order.
• The judge found Carrboro had standing to sue but ruled the claims were nonjusticiable and therefore must be dismissed in their entirety.
• Davis wrote that North Carolina’s energy and emissions policy is committed to other branches and agencies, including the Utilities Commission and the Department of Environmental Quality.
• The order said it is impossible to attribute specific local climate harms to emissions from a single utility or to gauge how different information would have altered global greenhouse gas output.
• The case, described as the first U.S. municipal suit seeking to make an electric utility pay local climate adaptation costs, was rejected as unlike traditional pollution cases with traceable causation.