Timeline, Smoking Guns, Additional Articles
-
Complaints -
Puerto Rico, Colorado, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oakland/San Francisco,
Washington
Climate Homicide: Prosecuting Big Oil for Climate Deaths
March 2023
David Arkush, Donald Braman
Given the extreme lethality of the conduct and the awareness of the catastrophic
risk on the part of fossil fuel companies, should they be charged with
homicide? Could they be convicted? In answering these questions, this
Article makes several contributions to our understanding of criminal law
and the role it could play in combating crimes committed at a massive
scale. It describes the doctrinal and social predicates of homicide prosecutions
where corporate conduct endangers much or all of the public.
Click here
New climate paper calls for charging big US oil firms with homicide.
March 2023
B. Kahn (The Guardian)
This article explores a new way of holding big oil companies accountable
for climate change: trying them for homicide.
Click here
New York Considers First-in-the-Nation Bill to Charge Fossil Fuel Companies
for Climate Change Destruction
March 2023
M. Simoes (City Limits)
New York’s ‘Climate Change Super Fund’ bill would require
the most prolific oil and gas producers to pay $3 billion dollars a year
for the next 25 years for their share of total greenhouse gas emissions.
The American Petroleum Institute (API), the largest U.S. trade association
for the oil and natural gas industry, sent a statement to New York State
legislators saying its members “strongly oppose this bill”
and called for it to be removed from the state’s final budget.
Click here
Senate poised to revive probe of Big Oil climate claims.
February 2023
C.Hiar (E&E News)
As the new position atop the Senate Budget Committee, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s,
is continuing to investigate Big Oil’s alleged efforts to mislead
the public about the causes and consequences of global warming.
Click here
Assessing ExxonMobil’s global warming projections.
January 2023
G. Supran, N. Oreskes, S. Rahmstorf
This report shows that in private and academic circles since the late 1970s
and early 1980s, ExxonMobil predicted global warming correctly and skillfully.
Using established statistical techniques, the authors found that 63 to
83% of the climate projections reported by ExxonMobil scientists were
accurate in predicting subsequent global warming.
Click here
CO2, Four, Six, Eight, How Do We Abate? Climate Change and Public Nuisance Law
2023
D. Rose
A paper my David Rose, a 2023 J.D. Candidate at the University of Oregon
School of Law, that provides background on nuisance law and how the courts
distinguish between damages and the equitable remedy of abatement.
Click here
Jurisdiction delays lawsuits against Big Oil: the Biden administration can help
December 2022
D. Merner
Delta Merner, Ph.D., is the lead scientist at the Science Hub for Climate
Litigation at the Union of Concerned Scientists Nationwide. In this paper,
he discussed how fssil fuel companies are using deliberate delay tactics
to keep cases out of state courts and what the administration should and
could do about it.
Click here
Liability for Public Deception: Linking Fossil Fuel Disinformation to Climate Damages
December 2022
J. Wetz, B. Franta
The authors examine how tort plaintiffs can establish a causal nexus between
public deception and damages, drawing from past litigation, particularly
claims filed against manufacturers for misleading the public about the
risks of tobacco, lead paint, and opioids. Their key finding is that courts
may infer public reliance on false and misleading statements using multiple
lines of evidence, including information about the scope and magnitude
of the deceptive communications, defendants’ internal assessments
of the efficacy of their disinformation campaigns, acknowledgements of
intended reliance made by defendants, expert testimony on the effects
of disinformation, public polling data, and more.
Click here
Research Priorities for Climate Litigation
November 2022
B. Franta, D. Merner, J. Wentz, et al
This article characterizes key research gaps and opportunities for scientists
across disciplines to do work that informs the rapidly growing number
of climate lawsuits cases worldwide. It focuses on research that can be
used to establish government and corporate responsibility for GHG emissions
and climate change-related damages.
Click here
Causality and the fate of climate litigation: The role of the social superstructure narrative
June 2022
F. Otto, et al
In this article, the authors step back from a case-specific analysis in
this article and identify the social context in which law and science
operate and intersect. They assert that without a general understanding
of the urgency of climate change and the scientifically proven fact that
climate change impacts the present, and that it is possible to attribute
individual losses to human-caused climate change, the fate and future
of climate litigation focusing on losses and damages will continue to
encounter major obstacles in courts.
Click here
Tortious claims and climate change: Where are we now?
January 2022
A. Chaize, I. Thain, J. Medlong
This is an examination at the 2022 judgement of the Court of Appeal of
New Zealand in Smith v Fonterra in which the court considered whether
to strike out a cause of action based on a novel tortious duty of care
to “cease contributing to damage to the climate system.”
Click here
Oil & Gas Lobbying, 2022
2022
Open Secrets
This article lists the amount of money Big Oil and Gas companies spent
on lobbying in 2022.
Click here
Climate Change and the Clean Air Act of 1970. Part 1: The Scientific Basis.
2022
N. Oreskes, et al
This Article reviews this history and its role in the passage of the Clean
Air Act of 1970.
Click here
Climate change attribution and legal contexts: evidence and the role of
storylines
August 2021
E. Lloyd, T. Shepherd
The study of this article finds that while climate change is recognized
as a significant threat to the industry, innovation efforts are hindered
by various barriers such as lack of financial resources, limited knowledge
and skills, and a lack of industry-wide collaboration. The article concludes
by recommending the need for a collaborative approach to climate change
adaptation in the industry, as well as increased support from government
and research organizations to overcome the barriers to innovation.
Click here
Filling the evidentiary gap in climate litigation
June 2021
F. Otto, et al
In this paper the authors discuss the challenges to scientifically demonstrating
causation to climate change and the role of climate-science in past litigation
and the evidence needed.
Click here
The Law and Science of Climate Change Attribution
2020
M. Burger, J. Wentz, R. Horton
This Article describes how climate change detection and attribution science
is now and may in the future be used in policymaking and litigation. We
focus primarily on litigation, as this is one key context in which attribution
science is influencing the legal discourse on “responsibility”
for climate change.
Click here
Attributable damage liability in a non-linear climate
September 2018
F. Otto, L. Harrington
The authors examine current research efforts linking the observed impacts
of climate-related events to human influences.
Click here
12 State Amicus Brief. Exxon Mobile Corp v Attorney General of New York, et.
June 2017
Brief in Support of Motion for Leave to File Brief as Amici Curiae in Opposition
to Defendants’ Renewed Motions to Dismiss Plaintiff’s First
Amended Complaint Exxon Mobile’s brief in support of Motion for Leave.
Click here
Exxon Mobile Brief. State of New York v Exxon Mobil
June 2017
Exxon Mobil’s Opposition to the Attorney General’s Motion to Quash.
Click here
Scientists, Legal Scholars Brief State Prosecutors on Fossil Fuel Companies’
Climate Accountability
May 2016
P. Frumhoff
Peter Frumhoff speaks out on the evidence and argument for fossil industry
climate accountability in public forums across the US.
Click here
The climate responsibilities of industrial carbon producers
July 2015
N. Oreskes, R. Heede, P. Frumhoff
Responsibility for climate change lies at the heart of societal debate
over actions to address it. But climate responsibilities can be attributed
in other ways as well. In this article, the authors explore the conceptual
territory of responsibility.
Click here
The Climate Deception Dossiers
July 2015
K. Mulvey, S. Shulman
In 1015, U.S. Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, who was chair of the U.S.
Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, had famously and repeatedly
called climate change “a hoax.” The hoax was the decades’
long campaign by a handful of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies-such
as Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Peabody Energy-to deceive
the American public by distorting the realities and risks of climate change,
sometimes acting directly and sometimes acting indirectly through trade
associations and front groups. This report presents seven “deception
dossiers”-collections containing some 85 internal company and trade
association documents that have either been leaked to the public, come
to light through lawsuits, or been disclosed through Freedom of Information
Act (FOIA) requests.
Click here
Climate Change and the Law
Chapter 17: Climate change in the courts: jurisdiction and common law litigation
2013
Lewis & Clark Law School
(with and excerpt by M. Woods)
This book comprehensively assesses the law and science of climate change,
as well as the policy choices for responding to this global problem. Chapter
17 includes a section includes an excerpt from a law review article by
Professor Mary Wood, who has argued for an expansion of the public trust
doctrine to encompass climate change.
Click here
Establishing Accountability for Climate Change Damages: Lessons from Tobacco Control
October 2012
M. Johnson House. Scripps Institution of Oceanography
This is a summary of the workshop on Climate Accountability, Public Opinion,
and Legal Strategies.
Click here
The Conundrum of Climate Change Causation: Using Market Share Liability
to Satisfy the Identification Requirement in Native Village of Kivalina
v. Exxonmobil Co.
2010
S. Lawson (Fordham Environmental Law Review)
Drafted by 2012 J.D. Candidate Samantha Lawson of Fordham University School
of Law, this article paper focuses on civil lawsuits filed by local governments,
environmental groups, private parties, and states claiming that greenhouse
gas emissions are actionable at common law.
Click here
Climate change, causation, and delayed harm
2009
E. Biber ("Climate Change, Causation, and Delayed Harm," Hofstra
Law Review: Vol. 37: Iss. 4, Article 4)
Click here
Memo: Fossil Fuel Climate Change Claims
Year unknown
Author unknown
Click here
Memo: Defenses Asserted in Climate Change Cases
Year unknown
Author unknown
Click here