Carrboro sues Duke Energy Corporation, accusing it of ignoring the climate crisis 

The suit, which Carrboro leaders say is the first case of a small town suing an electric company over climate change, accuses the country’s third-largest contributor to global warming of a decades-long “deception campaign.”

The Town of Carrboro sued Duke Energy Corporation this week, accusing it of lying about the threats posed by climate change and actively undermining efforts to reduce fossil fuel consumption, the biggest driver of the crisis.

The lawsuit says that Duke Energy engaged in a decades-long “deception campaign” about the risks associated with climate change, a deception that poses a direct threat to the town’s 21,000 residents and has cost them millions of dollars.

In a press conference on Wednesday, Mayor Barbara Foushee said that Carrboro “is the first in the nation to challenge an electric utility for deceiving the public about the dangers of fossil fuels and to seek damages for the harm it’s caused our community.”

Through negligence and deliberate actions, the lawsuit says, Duke Energy has “worsened the climate crisis,” and interfered with the public’s “right to use and enjoy property, and the rights to public life, health, safety, emergency management, and safe, unobstructed transportation.”

Duke Energy’s lack of urgency in responding to the climate crisis, the lawsuit says, will cost Carrboro millions of dollars in infrastructure and stormwater investments needed to mitigate the effects. It will also cost residents millions in increased energy costs while Duke delays the switch to cleaner, and ultimately less expensive, sources of power.

“For years, Duke Energy Corporation has been working against our public safety as our town has been working hard to use every tool at our disposal to mitigate the devastating effects of climate change,” she said.

“And yet the corporation has increased its reliance on coal and gas for electricity, is building new gas burning power plants as we speak … and has profited greatly while our community has suffered.”

The town council’s decision to sue was unanimous, Foushee said. 

In a statement released this week, Duke Energy said it was “reviewing the complaint,” but would “continue working with policymakers and regulators to deliver reliable and increasingly clean energy while keeping rates as low as possible.”

Duke Energy, the third-largest contributor to climate change in the US, according to the Political Economy Research Institute, operates several coal-powered plants in North Carolina, and is one of the country’s largest operators of these facilities. The burning of fossil fuels is the largest driver of climate change, and coal is one of the biggest culprits. 

A staggering price tag

Concerns over climate change have renewed with an incoming president that pretends the problem doesn’t exist and has committed to policies that will make the problem worse.

Donald Trump has often called climate change a hoax, pledged to derail the Biden administration’s intensive efforts to fight it, and promised to increase the country’s reliance on fossil fuels.

The scientific consensus on climate change is not new. The evidence has been overwhelming for decades, compelling for even longer, and highly suggestive since the late 60s

There is no good-faith disagreement among scientists that the Earth is warming dangerously fast and that the burning of fossil fuels is the primary reason.

Oil and energy companies have access to the same data, and the risks were no less clear to them, as has been documented in countless reporting and books. The fossil fuel industry paid millions of dollars to mislead the public about the threats and to create manufactured doubt about the scientific consensus, and then, once the science could no longer be ignored, pivoted to delay tactics rather than outright denial.

Climate change is a multi-billion dollar threat to North Carolina each year, and the damage from Hurricane Helene alone will amount to nearly $54 billion. 

A new report shows that climate change made each hurricane in 2024 stronger than it would have otherwise been. Helene may have been a once-in-a-generation Hurricane in Western North Carolina, but climate change, experts say, make it likely that every year sees at least one thousand-year storm. 

The suit comes as the North Carolina Utility Commission recently approved Duke’s attempts to delay its state-required reduction of carbon emissions. A 2021 law, which passed with bipartisan support and sprung from a plan pushed by Roy Cooper, requires Duke to reduce emissions by 70% in 2030 so that the state can become carbon neutral by 2050.

The new plan lets them push the first deadline to 2032.

‘Catastrophic effects’

The speed of the accelerated risks has surprised some climate scientists, but the consequences themselves have long been expected. 

And not just by scientists. The largest contributors to climate change have also known the risks.

As evidence, the lawsuit cites minutes from an industry meeting attended by “high-ranking Duke officials” in which scientists warned that “anticipated levels of fuel consumption” would create a huge increase of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere and “might, therefore, produce major consequences on the climate—possibly even triggering catastrophic effects.”

The meeting was held in 1968.