Big Oil Continues To Battle Back Against Lawsuits About Their Climate Pollution Culpability – CleanTechnica

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Big Oil spends a lot of time fighting lawsuits, as dozens of cities and states over the last decade have sued these major climate polluters. Claimants want to hold fossil fuel producers accountable for their role in causing the climate crisis. Companies like Exxon and Chevron, the applicants argue, knowingly and intentionally deceived the public by concealing their culpability in causing climate pollution and its dangerous effects. Trying to force Big Oil to fork over billions of dollars in damages due to the consequences of their actions, the petitioners cite evidence that Big Oil companies are directly related to extreme weather, sea level rise, wildfires, and human loss — and they knew it long before their internal reports became public.

Climate lawsuits aim to use the law to force change, awareness, and retribution in the form of damages.

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The attorneys general of the District of Columbia, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Vermont have launched suits against Big Oil. In the meantime, scientists at NOAA have concluded that 2023 was the hottest year in human history and that 2024 is on track to continue that trend. January through June global surface temperatures already ranked warmest in the 175-year record. Meanwhile, the effects of Category 1 Hurricane Debby are continuing up the Atlantic coastline after dumping nearly a dozen inches of rain in the Southeast US.

Here are descriptions of some of the cases, with the caveat that many fossil fuel companies have managed to stall these suits with jurisdictional questions, consistently imploring courts to move the cases to federal courts. The companies claim that because the claims are of national interest, the case is for the federal courts and not the jurisdiction of state courts.

The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico: Puerto Rico’s secretary of justice in July filed a climate liability lawsuit against fossil fuel companies including BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil Corporation, Shell, and TotalEnergies in the Court of First Instance of San Juan. The suit seeks at least $1 billion in compensation from the defendants to hold the Big Oil corporations accountable for damages they knowingly caused.

Domingo Emanuelli Hernández, the Commonwealth’s chief legal officer, described the hypocrisy of the fossil fuel industry.

“These companies have known internally for decades that greenhouse gas pollution from fossil fuel products would have adverse impacts on the global climate and sea level. Armed with that knowledge, they took steps to protect their own assets from climate damage and risks, through immense internal investment in research, infrastructure improvements, and plans to exploit new business opportunities in a warming world.”

Big Oil failed to truthfully warn Puerto Rican consumers about the consequences of using and burning fossil fuels on the island and their impact on the environment. As a result, Hernández argues, they must mitigate the damage they have caused to Puerto Rico.

Hawai’i suit bounces to US Supreme Court: The City and County of Honolulu filed a tort claim against Sunoco, Chevron, and other oil companies in 2020, alleging that they had deceived the public about the relationship between fossil fuels and climate change. Last year, the Hawai’i state supreme court ruled the case could go to trial. Several Big Oil companies appealed that decision, asking the US Supreme Court to intervene and prevent further action.

Deflecting responsibility — at least temporarily — the Supremes sent the Biden-Harris administration a request to offer comments on a bid by Big Oil to dismiss the lawsuit by Honolulu. The request delayed a decision by the justices on whether to hear an appeal filed by the oil companies after Hawai’i’s top court let the suit proceed. Other defendants in the lawsuit, which alleges violations of state law, include Exxon Mobil, BP, ConocoPhilips, BHP Group, and Marathon Petroleum.

Meanwhile, the government of Hawai’i settled a lawsuit in June with a group of young people who had sued the state’s Department of Transportation over its use of fossil fuels.

Rhode Island rebounds against Big Oil challenge: The State of Rhode Island lawsuit is seeking to hold fossil fuel companies liable for causing climate change impacts that adversely affect Rhode Island and jeopardize State-owned or -operated facilities, real property, and other assets. The suit, which was initiated in 2018, has been fought heartily by the fossil fuel industry. In 2023 the defendants filed a motion to clarify and strike portions of the court’s decision. The defendants contended that clarification of the scope of discovery was needed because Rhode Island had indicated that it interpreted the decision to authorize “sweeping” or “de facto full-merits” discovery that would include activities and conduct outside Rhode Island borders.

Superior Court Justice William Carnes issued a short order saying he will not accept as true the viewpoints he previously cited from a United Nations Climate Change Conference and two news articles from The Associated Press. He did this in response to calls by Exxon, Chevron, and Shell to strike them from an April decision. That decision granted Rhode Island the power to conduct limited discovery into the companies’ marketing oil and gas and knowledge about the effects of hydrocarbons on global warming.

Charleston, South Carolina, is first in the south to sue Big Oil: Charleston filed a state lawsuit against 24 fossil fuel companies, including Exxon, Shell, Chevron, and BP, to hold them accountable for lying about climate change harms they knew their products would cause. The 140-page lawsuit asserts that the oil companies knew that the use of fossil fuel products creates greenhouse gases, and therefore, causes climate change. The city also claims that the companies worked to discredit science and reports that stated that was the case. The companies also worked to increase oil extraction and usage, the lawsuit alleges.

Charleston is the first community in the US south to file a climate accountability lawsuit.

The City of Chicago fights back against catastrophic impacts: Chicago is suing ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, Shell, ConocoPhillips, Phillips 66, and the American Petroleum Institute to make them pay for lying to the public for decades about their fossil fuel products’ central role in the climate crisis, as chronicled by the Center for Climate Integrity. “Evidence shows that these Defendants intentionally misled Chicago residents about the climate change-related dangers associated with their oil and gas products. If unabated, climate change could result in catastrophic impacts on our city,” said Corporation Counsel Mary Richardson-Lowry. “We bring this lawsuit to ensure that the Defendants who have profited from the deception campaign bear responsibility for their conduct.”

You can read the complaint here: City of Chicago v. BP et al.

Final Thoughts about Big Oil Lawsuits

After years of legal appeals and delays, some oil companies are set to stand trial in lawsuits brought by these and other governments over the damages caused by the climate crisis.

More governments are bringing new claims against the fossil fuel industry as those initial cases, filed up to a half-dozen years ago, inch closer to the courtroom.