Inuit village seeks climate change payout

A village on Alaska's Arctic coastline has filed suit in a US District Court against 24 energy companies in an attempt to link erosion damage from global warming to the companies' actions.

Residents of Kivalina, a village of about 400 native Inupiat on the tip of a barrier reef between the Chukchi Sea and two river mouths, filed suit against the companies this week in US District Court in San Francisco. Village residents claimed that greenhouse gas emissions from the companies help warm the atmosphere and melt sea ice that used to protect them from winter storms. "Houses and buildings are in imminent danger of falling into the sea as the village is battered by storms and its ground crumbles from underneath it," the suit said. The residents seek relocation costs, which could run to $400 million. The defendants, including oil giants ExxonMobil, BP and Chevron Corp; coal miner Peabody Energy Corp, and power generator American Electric Power, are some of the largest producers of products that emit the main greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, or sell coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel. Late last year, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration offered a gloomy report on global warming's impact on the Arctic, finding less ice and warmer temperatures.
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