The small town of Carrboro, North Carolina, is suing one of the country’s largest energy providers, Duke Energy, over climate change.

While states and cities have done so filed lawsuits against major oil companiesLawsuits against utility companies are less common. However, the arguments are similar. Carrboro claims Duke knew about climate change for more than 50 years but continued to operate coal and gas-fired power plants that emitted greenhouse gases. The lawsuit also alleges that Duke engaged in campaigns to confuse the public about whether climate change was real in order to avoid stricter regulations.

According to a report, Duke Energy is the third largest source of carbon dioxide in the country University of Massachusetts Amherst analysis. This puts it well ahead of ExxonMobil and Koch Industries. The utility has six coal-fired power plants in North Carolina.

“We must protect our community from future harm and that is why we are here as plaintiffs in this lawsuit,” said Carrboro Mayor Barbara Foushee.

Duke Energy did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.

In a lawsuit filed in North Carolina state court, Carrboro is asking a jury to award the city money for current and future losses due to climate change.

“Our community experiences flooding fairly regularly due to severe storms that leave large amounts of rainfall in short periods of time,” Foushee said. Higher temperatures also lead to more road maintenance and electric bills in city buildings are higher because they use more air conditioning, the complaint says.

The lawsuit doesn’t ask for a specific dollar amount, but Foushee says Carrboro has begun calculating climate-related costs. “We know the city could incur up to $60 million in damages in the coming years,” she said.

The complaint alleges that Duke Energy learned about the effects of climate change at a utility trade group meeting in 1968, 56 years ago.

“This meeting discussed carbon dioxide emissions and their damage to the planet and the need to potentially take action,” said Howard Crystal, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity who advised on the case.

Instead of reducing its climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions, Duke worked with others to dispel doubts about whether climate change was real, the city claims.

The lawsuit refers to newspaper advertisements from one Industry funded group called “Information Council for the Environment”. A full-page ad placed in a Bowling Green, Kentucky newspaper in 1991 asked, “How much are you willing to pay to solve a problem that may not exist?” It showed a sweating man carrying a large wallet and then highlighted information that cast doubt on climate warming . Crystal says this has caused confusion among the public and prevented action.

“If we had actually invested early and substantially in transitioning away from fossil fuels, we would not be faced with the incredible costs we continually bear to address the climate catastrophes that continue to befall us,” says Crystal.

Nowadays Duke Energy says It is “executing an ambitious clean energy transition” and aims to “reach zero net carbon emissions from electricity generation by 2050.” This goal is consistent with the landmark 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. Duke Energy serves 8.4 million customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio. The company generates most of its electricity by burning fossil fuels, which are the main reason the planet is warming.

Lawyers filing this case for Carrboro say it is groundbreaking because it focuses on defrauding a corporation and targets utilities rather than oil companies. Still, experts who monitor climate disputes say they’re not surprised.

“We have known for several years that utilities have similar internal knowledge about the dangers of climate change and the connection of their activities to rising greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere,” said Doug Kysar, a law professor at Yale University.

Another reason Kysar says he’s not surprised: States and cities are looking for ways to cover the additional costs of climate change.

Previous Federal Cases were unsuccessful in court because they focused on emissions from coal-fired power plants. According to Kysar, the courts found that this “constituted an interference with the powers of the Environmental Protection Agency,” and some justices felt that the issue “is better addressed by the other branches of government.”

“And so the recent wave of lawsuits is really focused on the fraudulent and manipulative conduct of the defendants because that fits better with areas of traditional state law,” Kysar says.

Still, Kysar believes it may be more difficult to bring lawsuits against utilities before a jury than lawsuits against oil companies because the two have different reputations. He says oil companies are often viewed by the public as “very powerful, very wealthy and increasingly somewhat manipulative and untrustworthy actors.”

Utilities like Duke Energy “are heavily regulated by public utility commissions” and don’t have such a bad reputation.

“We all have a bill that we pay every month to these utilities, and many of them are cooperatives,” Kysar says. But if cases like this are successful, he thinks it could change the way people think about utilities.

Correcting public perception is part of Carrboro’s goal. Mayor Foushee says it’s important beyond a financial settlement to get recognition that Duke Energy’s climate pollution is harming her city.

“Someone has to speak truth to power about this Duke Energy Corporation issue, and that’s us,” Foushee said.