Exxon sued in Colorado over climate change

NEW YORK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) Three Colorado communities filed a lawsuit against oil companies yesterday, launching the latest legal battle seeking damages for what they claim are the costs of adapting to climate change.

The lawsuit, filed in Colorado by the city of Boulder and the counties of San Miguel and Boulder, accuses Suncor and Exxon Mobil Corp of creating a public nuisance by producing and selling fossil fuels that cause climate change.

Scientific consensus holds that carbon dioxide pollution from burning fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal is the main cause of climate change.

Suncor and Exxon “sold and promoted fossil fuels knowing that climate impacts were substantially certain to occur if unchecked fossil fuel use continued,” the communities said in the complaint.

Exxon spokesman Scott Silvestri called the lawsuit part of a misplaced effort to pin the global phenomenon of climate change on oil producers alone. Exxon is the world’s largest publicly traded oil producer. “Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a global issue and requires global participation and actions,” he said in emailed comments.

A spokeswoman for Suncor, one of Canada’s biggest oil producers, said the company could not comment because it had not yet seen a copy of the lawsuit.