To fight climate change, New York City takes on oil companies
NEW YORK — Seeking to position himself as a national leader against climate change, Mayor Bill de Blasio this week announced a two-pronged attack against the fossil fuel industry, including a vow that city pension funds would divest about $5 billion from companies involved in the fossil fuel business.
The mayor also announced a lawsuit against five major oil companies, seeking to collect billions of dollars in damages to pay for city efforts to cope with the effects of climate change.
The mayor acknowledged that the lawsuit, which he compared to successful lawsuits against large tobacco companies, could take years to reach a resolution.
The city lawsuit says that the oil companies — BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell — were aware for years that burning fossil fuels caused climate change but hid the conclusions of their own scientists. It says that the city has spent billions of dollars and will spend billions more to deal with the consequences of climate change, such as the effects of Hurricane Sandy, and it seeks to hold the companies responsible for those costs.
“Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a global issue and requires global participation and actions,” Exxon Mobil said in an emailed statement. “Lawsuits of this kind — filed by trial attorneys against an industry that provides products we all rely upon to power the economy and enable our domestic life — simply do not do that.”
A spokesman for Chevron said the lawsuit would “do nothing to address the serious issue of climate change.”