Global warming complaint against carmakers is dismissed

By Adam Liptak

NEW YORK: The courts do not have the authority or the expertise to decide injury lawsuits concerning global warming, a judge in San Francisco ruled in dismissing a suit brought by the State of California against six auto companies.

The decision Monday, by Judge Martin Jenkins, was welcome news for automakers, who had suffered a defeat last week in federal court in Vermont. In the decision last week, Judge William Sessions III endorsed Vermont regulations meant to reduce greenhouse gases emitted by cars and light trucks. More than a dozen states have similar rules, and a lawsuit challenging such regulations in California is pending. In the case decided Monday, California claimed that the six car companies produced vehicles that accounted for more than 20 percent of human-generated carbon dioxide emissions in the United States and more than 30 percent of those emitted in California.

The suit claimed that the emissions were a public nuisance and sought billions of dollars in damages. Jenkins wrote that resolving the questions presented in the suit was not a proper task for the courts. "The adjudication of plaintiff's claim would require the court to balance the competing interests of reducing global warming emissions and the interests of advancing and preserving economic and industrial development," Jenkins wrote. The two decisions are not necessarily at odds. They collectively suggest that states may address climate change through their legislatures and executive branches, but not through the courts.

Given national and international debate on the issues, Jenkins wrote, "the court finds that injecting itself into the global warming thicket at this juncture would require an initial policy determination of the type reserved for the political branches of government." Indeed, he continued, a decision from the court on awarding damages for increasing global warming could potentially undermine the choices of the political branches.

SEC petitioned on climate State officials, pension funds and environmental groups petitioned the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday to force companies to disclose more to investors about how climate change might hurt the bottom line, Bloomberg News reported from Washington. The state treasurer of California, Bill Lockyer; the state attorney general of New York, Andrew Cuomo; and the chief financial officer of Florida, Alex Sink, were part of the group that filed the request with the SEC, according to Environmental Defense and to Ceres, a coalition of investment funds and environmental groups that is based in Boston.

To be continue in other article...

(Jakarta, Jumat 22 February 2008)

Re-publish by Jacob Paradox from link (www.routers.com),(www.iht.com), (www.routers.com), (www.nytimes.com)

Get More Subject Information In Global Warming:

Acid rain, air pollution, al gore, alternative energy, alternative fuel, an inconvenient truth, Biofuel, Carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide emissions, carbon emissions, carbon footprint, carbon neutral, carbon offset, carbon offsets, clean air, climate, climate change, conservation, Emissions, energy, energy conservation, energy efficiency, environment, environmental, environmental issues, environmentalist, environmentally friendly, Global climate change, globalwarming, greenhouse, greenhouse effect, greenhouse gas, greenhouse gas emissions, greenhouse gases, Hybrid, Inconvenient truth, Kyoto protocol, kyoto treaty, Peak oil, pollution, pollution control, Recycle, recycling, renewable energy, Save gas, solar,,solar panels, Water pollution, wind power