Oil majors sued over climate change
Exxon, Chevron among 5 producers accused of misleading public over fossil fuels’ impact
Five of the world’s biggest oil and gas producers were sued by New Jersey for allegedly deceiving the public about the impact of petroleum on global warming, joining other states that are seeking to hold the industry legally accountable for climate change.
Exxon Mobil, Shell Oil, Chevron, BP and ConocoPhillips are accused of “systematically concealing and denying their knowledge that fossil fuel consumption could have a catastrophic impact on the climate,” leading to sea rise, flooding and extreme weather that have battered the state, New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin said Tuesday in a statement.
Their “awareness of the negative impacts of fossil fuel consumption almost exactly tracks the onset of the Great Acceleration — meaning that defendants have known for more than 50 years that greenhouse gas pollution from fossil fuel products would have significant adverse impacts on the Earth’s climate and sea levels,” Platkin said.
“Legal proceedings like this waste millions of dollars of taxpayer money and do nothing to advance meaningful actions that reduce the risks of climate change,” Exxon Mobil spokesperson Casey Norton said in a statement. “Exxon Mobil will continue to invest in efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while meeting society’s growing demand for energy.”
Shawn LaTourette, the state’s environmental protection commissioner, called New Jersey the “ground zero” for some of the worst impacts of climate change. The commissioner added that the Garden State communities and the environment “are continually recovering from extreme heat, furious storms and devas
tating floods.”
The suit comes shortly before the 10th anniversary of Superstorm Sandy, which devastated large parts of New Jersey and New York City. The announcement of the suit was made at Liberty State Park in Jersey City, which was inundated by floodwaters from the storm.
The suit seeks civil penalties and damages, including for damage to natural resources such as wetlands, alleging that taxpayers will have to pay billions of dollars to protect communities from rising sea levels, deadlier storms and other harmful effects, and arguing that those costs should be paid by the defendants.
A lawyer for Chevron, Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., called the suit a “distraction from the serious problem of global climate change, not an attempt to find a real solution. “Chevron believes that the claims asserted are legally and factually meritless, and will demonstrate that in court,” he said in a statement. “In the meantime, Chevron will continue working with other stakeholders in the public and private sectors to craft real solutions to global climate change.”
Shell, in a statement, said “addressing a challenge as big as climate change requires a truly collaborative, societywide approach.” It added, “We do not believe the courtroom is the right venue to address climate change, but that smart policy from government, supported by action from all business sectors, including ours, and from civil society, is the appropriate way to reach solutions and drive progress.”
BP and ConocoPhillips declined to comment.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in state court in Trenton, also named as a defendant the American Petroleum Institute, an industry group.
“The record of the past two decades demonstrates that the industry has achieved its goal of providing affordable, reliable American energy to US consumers while substantially reducing emissions and our environmental footprint,” the API said in a statement. “Any suggestion to the contrary is false.”
The New Jersey case is similar to efforts by more than a half-dozen other states, beginning with New York, which sued Exxon Mobil in 2018 for lying to shareholders about its use of a “proxy cost” for carbon in its internal accounting to prepare for future climate change regulations and lost at trial. Suits filed by other states including Connecticut, Massachusetts and Minnesota are still pending.
Exxon Mobil in March lost an attempt to revive a 2016 lawsuit claiming the Democratic attorneys general of New York and Massachusetts were motivated by politics when they opened investigations into the energy giant’s statements to investors about climate change.