(NewsNation) — The City and County of Honolulu is suing major oil and gas companies for their role in climate change, a first-of-its-kind case to go to trial.

Hawaii’s Supreme Court unanimously ruled the case could move forward to trial Oct. 31, rejecting the companies’ argument the lawsuit seeks to regulate emissions or interstate commerce, a power only the federal government has.

Instead, the court said the case is focused on misleading statements oil and gas companies made, which the suit says led to climate change-caused property and infrastructure damage.

“We decline to unduly limit Hawaii’s ability to use its police powers to protect its citizens from alleged deceptive marketing,” Chief Justice Mark Recktenwald wrote in the majority opinion.

The lawsuit names Chevron, Exxon, Shell and BP among others and could cost the companies billions of dollars in damages.

It was filed in 2020 with the claim that the named companies knew burning fossil fuels would lead to climate change but worked to conceal the truth from the public for decades.

The defendants “knowingly concealed and misrepresented the climate impacts of their fossil fuel
products” and engaged in “sophisticated disinformation campaigns to cast doubt on the science, causes, and effects of global warming,” the complaint stated.

The lawsuit pointed to the impact it has had on Hawaii specifically, saying heat waves linked to climate change have stressed Honolulu’s electrical grid and a wastewater treatment plant would need to be rebuilt to account for rising sea levels, along with storms, flooding and wildfires.

The suit does not specify an exact amount of damages but argues the climate disasters Honolulu has faced cost billions in destruction and repairs.

Chevron released a statement disagreeing with the lawsuit and the court’s decision to uphold it.

“Under our federal constitutional structure, a Hawaiian court applying Hawaiian law is not the appropriate authority to reshape interstate and international activities in a major sector of the economy,” the company said.

Shell, also named in the suit, said, “We do not believe the courtroom is the right venue to address climate change.”

Similar cases filed by local governments in California, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Hawaii and Rhode Island over climate change have been sent back to state courts, and none have gone to trial.

“This is now the most important climate case in the United States,” said former Hawaii Supreme Court Justice Michael Wilson, who retired earlier after a decade on the state’s highest court. “Now the Hawai‘i Supreme Court has allowed a jury of 12 Hawai’i citizens to decide whether lies by the oil companies created large-scale billion-dollar damage to our county and city of Honolulu.”