Rising seas are expected to test San Francisco’s infrastructure along the bay. Already parts of the Embarcadero experience flooding during high tides. Rising seas are expected to test San Francisco’s infrastructure along the bay. Already parts of the Embarcadero experience flooding during high tides. Photo: Kim Komenich, SFC Photo: Kim Komenich, SFC Image 1 of / 53 Caption Close San Francisco, Oakland sue major oil companies over rising seas 1 / 53 Back to Gallery

The cities of San Francisco and Oakland are suing some of the world’s largest oil companies over climate change, joining an emerging legal effort to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for the damages wrought by rising seas.

The suits, filed separately in Superior Court in San Francisco and Alameda County and announced Wednesday, claim that a slate of oil, gas and coal producers not only caused the heat-trapping gases that drove sea level rise but knowingly did so, a challenge akin to litigation against big tobacco companies in the 1990s.

Both cities are asking the companies, which include Bay Area-based Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Shell and BP, to pay billions in compensation for past and future flooding, coastal erosion and property damage resulting from climate change.

“The bill has come due,” said San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera. “It’s time for these companies to take responsibility.”

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The lawsuits, filed Tuesday, come two months after the counties of Marin and San Mateo, as well as the San Diego County city of Imperial Beach, filed similar challenges amid a growing push to use the courts to go after individual corporations for their contribution to global warming.

Earlier legal attempts to tie specific companies to the problem have been scant and largely ineffective. But as scientific advancements make it increasingly possible to pinpoint the causes of climate change, and with the Trump administration sidelining the issue, law experts say both the number of suits against the fossil fuel industry and their chances of success are bound to grow.

“With the federal administration pulling back, it doesn’t surprise me that more people are turning to the courts,” said Sean Hecht, co-executive director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the UCLA School of Law. “It’s possible that the courts will be more sympathetic to claims when there isn’t concurrent federal regulatory action moving forward.”

Representatives from the oil industry, including Chevron officials, said the legal action was not productive.

“Chevron welcomes serious attempts to address the issue of climate change, but these suits do not do that,” said company spokeswoman Melissa Ritchie in an email. “Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a global issue that requires global engagement and action.”

Eric Wohlschlegel, a spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute trade group, said the oil and natural gas industry had already made climate change a priority and will “play a leading role in driving down U.S. greenhouse gas and other emissions.”

Like the challenges in Marin and San Mateo counties, the lawsuits in San Francisco and Oakland argue that the oil producers constitute a public nuisance.

The suits claim the extraction and development of fossil fuels prompted a significant increase in global warming, which melted ice sheets and heated sea water so that it expanded, raising ocean levels nearly eight inches in California over the past century. As much as 10 additional feet of sea level rise may occur by 2100, according to the suit.

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