California sues oil giants for environmental damage

The state of California, in USAfiled a lawsuit against five of the world’s largest oil companies, alleging that they caused billions of dollars in damages and deceived people by downplaying the climate risks of fossil fuels.

The lawsuit, revealed by The New York Times and confirmed by the state governor, joins many others filed by cities, counties and states in the United States against entities linked to fossil fuels for their environmental impact, amid decades-old accusations of disinformation campaigns.

The civil lawsuit, to which AFP had access, was filed in San Francisco Superior Court against Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips and Chevron, based in California. The American Petroleum Institute (API) is also one of the targets.

”For more than 50 years, Big Oil has been lying to us, covering up the fact that they have known for a long time how dangerous the fossil fuels they produce are to our planet,” California Governor Gavin Newsom said in a statement on Friday. a statement. “California took steps to hold big polluters accountable,” he added.

An API spokesperson criticized the government initiative, arguing that climate policy “should be debated and adopted by Congress, not the judicial system.”

”This ongoing, coordinated campaign to pursue baseless, politicized lawsuits against a critical American industry and its workers diverts discussion from other truly important issues for the country and constitutes a huge waste of American taxpayer resources. California“API spokesperson Andrea Woods told AFP.

Shell He reacted in a somewhat more nuanced way. A spokesperson for him said the company agrees that “action is needed to combat climate change now,” but that a courtroom “is not the right place” for it.

The representatives of the others oil groups They did not immediately respond to AFP’s queries.

These companies and their associates “intentionally minimized the risks posed by fossil fuels to the population, even though they knew that their products could cause significant global warming” since the 1950s, the text highlights.

– “Tricks” –

With this legal action, California aims to create a fund to address future damage caused by climate change in this state, victim of wildfires, floods and other extreme events fueled by the global warming.

”The executives of oil companies and gas companies have known for decades that dependence on fossil fuels was going to cause these catastrophic results, but they have deprived the public and policymakers of that information by actively promoting misinformation on the subject,” the lawsuit states.

”Their deceptions have delayed the response to global warming,” with “a high cost to people, property and natural resources, which continues to weigh every day,” the text continues.

”By downplaying the scientific consensus on global warming and emphasizing the existence of doubts about it, the defendants hoped to delay any regulatory action to reduce or control emissions. [de gases de efecto invernadero] that actually threaten the profits of the sector.”

Since the wave of complaints against oil and gas companies began about six years ago, the sector has tried to counter the attacks by avoiding legal proceedings.

But their efforts suffered a major setback last May, when in two cases the US Supreme Court rejected both appeals, allowing legal actions to continue.

These lawsuits are modeled on those successfully filed against tobacco giants or the pharmaceutical industry in the case of opioid proliferation.

In environmentalist circles, the initiative of California It was very well received. “We are at a decisive moment” in the resistance to oil companies, said the Center for Climate Integrity.

California “It is the first major oil-producing state to take fossil fuel companies to court for their deceptions,” he noted.

This initiative “is an unequivocal sign that the wave of lawsuits against big oil companies will continue to grow and that the days of these polluters escaping their responsibility are numbered,” the president of that non-profit organization based in Mexico said in a statement. Washington, Richard Wiles.

(With information from AFP)