HUNDREDS OF CLIMATE SUITS BEING LITIGATED By Tricia Dunlap and Sarah Edwards
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n 1998, the Vice President of the Tobacco Institute, Murray Walker, testified in a Minnesota trial, “We don’t believe it’s ever been established that smoking is the cause of disease.” His testimony contradicted decades of internal industry research stretching back to the early 1950s that concluded smoking causes cancer and other diseases. The plaintiffs in City of New York v. BP, Chevron Corporation, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil Corporation and Royal Dutch Shell alleged that the defendants, like Murray Walker, deliberately misled the public about the causal links between their products and climate change. The City of New York’s claims were dismissed. But in April, Shell surrendered internal documents from 1988 and 1998 that reveal the company knew its products cause climate change for which the company might someday be liable. Hundreds of climate change lawsuits are working their way through United States courts, using arguments grounded in several different legal theories: tort, fiduciary duty, securities laws and constitutional law.
TORT CLAIMS State and local governments are attempting to use tort claims to impose liability on fossil fuel companies for the climate change caused by their products. Plaintiffs such as the state of Rhode Island, and cities like Oakland and San Francisco, argue that climate change causes sea levels to rise and seas to acidify, degraded air quality, and more severe weather patterns with resulting damage to infrastructure.