NC town rebuts Duke Energy efforts to dismiss climate-change lawsuit
Carrboro reasserted its right Thursday to take Duke Energy to court over “deceptive business practices” that the town claims have exacerbated the local risks and costs of climate change.
Those alleged deceptions are the basis of a lawsuit the town filed in December, with help from two environmental nonprofits, the Center for Biological Diversity and NC WARN, which is paying the town’s legal costs.
On March 17, Duke Energy asked an N.C. Business Court judge to dismiss the case, claiming the town does not have the authority to sue and the courts do not have the jurisdiction to consider the claims.
The lawsuit made headlines as potentially the first time a municipality has sued an electric utility over alleged damages from “largely unabated” greenhouse gas emissions and the continued use of fossil fuels.
Several lawsuits have been filed nationwide against oil and gas companies, The News & Observer reported in December.
Duke Energy has 8.2 million customers in six states, and released roughly 80 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2021, the lawsuit says.
The N.C. Utilities Commission approved the utility’s plans last year to build 6,700 megawatts of solar energy; seven new gas-fired power plants totaling 5,620 megawatts; 2,700 megawatts of battery storage; and 1,200 megawatts of onshore wind by 2031.
Additional construction of off-shore wind and nuclear projects are also planned.
However, the investment is not expected to meet a 70% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions required by state law. Duke Energy and the Public Staff, a ratepayers’ advocate, said that goal is too expensive and could make energy production unreliable.
$60M in damages due to ‘deception’
Carrboro claims Duke Energy has spent millions of dollars “on industry front groups and public relations firms to deceive the public about the science of climate change” and to stall the transition to renewable energy.
Duke Energy’s March 17 motion says the town filed the lawsuit to give NC WARN, which “has targeted Duke Energy for years,” leverage “for political purposes.”
The town addresses that claim in Thursday’s motion, saying its relationship with NC WARN is “irrelevant.”
In a news release, NC WARN officials called it an attempt to subvert the town’s constitutional right to associate with a local environmental nonprofit.
“As with the tobacco industry scandal, they can’t afford to admit Duke’s executives have helped lead such a widely damaging conspiracy of deception for all these years,” said Jim Warren, executive director of NC WARN.
Duke Energy’s alleged deception has increased the costs of climate change for Carrboro, the town and environmental groups said in the news release. The lawsuit mirrors other cases where courts have found companies “responsible for their misconduct,” it said.
Carrboro claims it could cost the town at least $60 million to deal with the local effects of climate change, including more frequent road repairs, higher cooling costs, and infrastructure projects to handle more severe storms and flooding.
Duke Energy is responsible, because it did not act more aggressively in transitioning from fossil fuels and knew that would accelerate the climate crisis, the lawsuit says.
“It is clear that our town and hardworking taxpayers cannot and should not be forced to pay for this. The Carrboro community deserves a safe and healthy climate, not the crisis that Duke Energy Corporation’s fossil fuels continue to cause,” Carrboro Mayor Barbara Foushee said at a December news conference.
Thursday’s motion emphasized the town is not trying “to upend regulatory decisions or enact policy determinations.”
“Duke Energy is grasping at legal straws to hide its decades-long campaign of climate deception,” said Jean Su, energy justice director and senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Duke Energy executives put profits over people and the planet, as they used deceptions to build one of the world’s worst climate polluting corporations. Now they should be held accountable for saddling the town with a costlier, dirtier, riskier future.”
Who is responsible for climate change?
The N.C. Supreme Court moved the lawsuit in January from Orange County Superior Court to N.C. Business Court, where it is now designated a “complex business case,” because there are multiple stakeholders, complicated details and potentially significant decisions.
Duke Energy argued in its March motion to dismiss that it is not solely responsible for global climate change, but that it is the result of actions around the world, including “‘human-made emissions,’ and other sources going back over 100 years.”
In addition, neither the N.C. legislature nor the federal government has given Carrboro the authority to challenge the state’s energy and climate policy decisions or seek damages from Duke Energy for implementing policies to meet customers’ future electricity needs, the company’s motion says.
State policy decisions already consider both energy needs, natural resources preservation, and public feedback, the motion says. The lawsuit asks the court to assume the authority of setting energy and climate policy, it says.
“Carrboro is, respectfully, outside its lane, and this Court must dismiss the Complaint in its entirety for lack of subject matter jurisdiction,” the motion says.
This story was originally published May 2, 2025 at 8:16 AM.
