Dive Brief:
- The City of Chicago announced Tuesday that it is suing six oil and gas companies and their largest trade association for knowingly deceiving the city’s consumers about the climate change risks associated with fossil fuel products.
- The city is hoping to force BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Phillips 66, Shell and the American Petroleum Institute to pay to help address climate change impacts affecting Chicago. Mayor Brandon Johnson in a statement cited impacts such as unprecedented poor air quality and basement flooding.
- Chicago joins dozens of municipalities and states, from Honolulu to New York City, that are taking major fossil fuel companies to court with similar arguments.
Dive Insight:
Advocates of such lawsuits against Big Oil liken the litigation to that against the tobacco industry almost three decades ago, which eventually led to a federal judge finding that the industry had lied about the dangers of smoking and pushed cigarettes to young people.
Internal documents have revealed that oil and gas companies such as Exxon strategized ways to downplay the risks of climate change and muddle scientific findings that might hurt its business.
However, the American Petroleum Institute maintains that recent lawsuits filed against the industry are a waste of time and money. Ryan Meyers, general counsel of the trade association, called the litigation “meritless” and “politicized” in a statement to the Chicago Sun-Times, adding that “climate policy is for Congress to debate and decide — not the court system.”
Numerous federal appeals and district courts have ruled against fossil fuel industry requests to prevent such lawsuits from moving forward in state courts, according to the Center for Climate Integrity, which supports communities working toward what the organization calls climate accountability.
Chicago is paying enormous costs to mitigate the worsening impacts of climate change, said Alderman Matt Martin in a statement, citing examples such as extreme heat, sewage flows into Lake Michigan and damage to city infrastructure. “We intend to shift those costs back where they belong: on the companies whose deceptive conduct brought us the climate crisis,” he said.
The city’s almost 200-page complaint details more of the climate change-related damages it says the city has incurred and seeks to prevent the oil and gas industry defendants from “engaging in the deceptive and unfair acts and practices alleged in the lawsuit,” a press release says.
