A federal judge put the last nail in the coffin of San Francisco’s and Oakland’s climate change lawsuits on Friday when he dismissed the cases on grounds of personal jurisdiction, ruling that the California cities failed to prove that their alleged injuries would not have occurred if it were not for the energy companies’ California-based operations.

The decision followed a June 25 ruling in which the judge dismissed the cases on separate grounds, observing that the regulation of greenhouse gases is a matter for Congress or the executive branch, not the courts, to decide.

In his latest ruling, U.S. District Judge William Alsup wrote that in order for San Francisco and Oakland to hold the energy companies accountable, “[their] claim must be one which ‘arises out of or relates to’ the defendants forum-related activities,” or their business operations exclusively conducted in California. It was up to the cities to meet this burden of proof – and they failed. Continue reading at EID Climate.