Climate Justice Campaign:GOAL: Low-income communities and communities of color disproportionately suffer from the effects of global warming, and not surprisingly, the effects of policy decisions to address global warming. The Climate Justice Campaign uses CRPE’s unique blend of community organizing and litigation to address the dual threats that low-income communities face.
BACKGROUND: CRPE teamed up with the Native American Rights Fund and with some of the nation’s top trial lawyers to file Native Village of Kivalina v. ExxonMobile Corp., No. 4:08-cv-1138 SBA (N.D. Cal.) against the nation’s top 24 greenhouse gas emitters. Our clients are the City of Kivalina and the Native Village of Kivalina, an Inupiat community in northwestern Alaska on the coast of the Chukchi Sea. The lawsuit alleges that the top global warming polluters in the U.S. are substantially contributing to global warming and the resulting damage to Kivalina. Kivalina is facing increased arctic temperatures causing land-fast sea ice to form later in the fall and melt earlier in the spring, which allows storms to erode the island on which Kivalina rests. The disruption of sea ice also affects traditional subsistence hunting and fishing, because hunters cannot safely traverse dangerously thin ice. In early 2010, hunters could not hunt seal on the thin ice and whale hunting is exceptionally dangerous since sea ice does not extend as far into the Chuckchi Sea has historically been the case. The lawsuit also alleges that a handful of the defendants have engaged in a civil conspiracy to mislead the public about the causes and effects of global warming. On October 15, 2009, U.S. District Court Judge Saundra B. Armstrong dismissed the lawsuit. On November 5, 2009, the City of Kivalina appealed Judge Armstrong’s decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. On March 11, 2010, Kivalina’s team of lawyers filed the community’s opening brief. On September 15, 2010, we filed our response to the arguments of the oil, energy, and coal company defendants’ arguments. We expect oral argument in the summer of 2011.  Assembly Bill 32: The California Global Warming Solutions Act
After supporting the passage of AB 32, which included strong language to protect low-income communities and communities of color, the California Air Resources Board outraged environmental justice activists and community groups by adopting a plan based on the industry-preferred approach of using a market-based “Cap and Trade” program. Cap and Trade is an ineffective system because it does not require major polluters to reduce their carbon emissions. Cap and Trade allows major emitters of greenhouse gases to buy “reductions” from other polluters instead of reducing their own pollution. Polluters may also avoid reducing their emissions by purchasing "offsets." Offsets can be bought from a source nearly anywhere in the world and go to fund ecofriendly projects. So while trees are being planted in Canada, corporations can continue to pollute back home in California at levels equal to or even greater than they did before AB 32. Cap and Trade deprives nearby residents from the benefits of toxic, smog, and particulate matter pollution reductions that would accompany local greenhouse gas reductions. Environmental justice communities burdened by huge industrial concentrations of pollution would likely see no benefits when major polluters buy, instead of reduce, their pollution. Laws like the Clean Air Act – which also includes an offset scheme called New Source Review – do not protect nearby communities from these expansions. On June 10, 2009, a group of individual and Environmental Justice organizations sued ARB in order to ensure that AB 32’s implementation was consistent with its letter and spirit. The Plaintiffs' goal was to strengthen AB 32, not to definitively halt, and ensure that all California residents would have a chance to benefit from, the groundbreaking piece of legislation. On January 24, 2011, the San Francisco Superior Court issued a tentative decision in their favor. On March 18, 2011, the judge finalized his decision. The ruling means that the Board shall analyze and consider alternatives to Cap and Trade before proceeding with implementing AB 32. The judge ruled that the Board had too single mindedly pursued Cap and Trade, and in doing so, ignored what could be better options to effectively reduce emissions and fairly protect low-income communities and communities of color. CRPE and the environmental justice community continue to vigorously support AB 32, but as Legal Director Alegria De La Cruz wrote, "we only have one chance to do it right. All Californians deserve the benefits of greenhouse gas reductions, and the poor should not be sacrificed in favor of a system designed for polluters." On April 22, 2011 and as ordered by the Court, CRPE and our co-counsel, Communities for a Better Environment, submitted a letter to Judge Goldsmith and two proposed writs of mandate. The first would halt all implementation of AB 32. At the same time, we submitted an alternative writ of mandate that would only prevent ARB from proceeding with any Cap and Trade implementation and allows the rest – the good part – of AB 32 to proceed. Our clients believe that the latter writ is the appropriate way to proceed. A May 20th injunction ensures that California's Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32) will continue to reduce greenhouse gases yet stops the law-breaking California Air Resources Board from using the discriminatory pollution trading scheme - "Cap and Trade" until the Board considers other policy options, like direct pollution controls on refineries and power plants, or even a carbon fee. See press release here. Sofia Parino 415-346-4179
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