On December 20th 2017, the City of Santa Cruz and Santa Cruz County filed separate lawsuits in the California Superior Court against 29 oil, gas, and coal companies in relation to their alleged contribution to climate change. Plaintiffs seek to hold fossil fuel companies liable for rising sea levels but also for extreme weather events such as severe wildfires, drought, and big storms, resulting from greenhouse gas pollution from oil, gas, and coal.

Plaintiffs allege that the 29 fossil fuel companies are directly responsible for 17.5% of total CO2 emissions betwen 1965 and 2015. They also allege that defendants have known about the consequences of fossil fuel use on climate change for over 50 years, and that they failed to act, concealed the dangers and sought to undermine greenhouse gas regulation.

The City of Santa Cruz and Santa Cruz County say they had to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in response to extreme weather events, and will have to incur even higher costs because of climate change impacts and adaptation.