On the eve of Earth Day, young climate activists who are taking governments to court over the climate crisis in the US assembled in front of the White House in Washington DC to send a clear message to US President Joe Biden and his administration’s Department of Justice: “We will not be silenced!”
Several of the youth plaintiffs from the landmark constitutional climate case Juliana v. United States came together with youth plaintiffs in other US rights-based climate lawsuits, including the Held v. State of Montana case that won a historic victory last year, to demand that President Biden allow the Juliana case to proceed to trial. The case has faced unprecedented attempts by government lawyers in the US Department of Justice to terminate it and prevent any evidence and testimony from being heard at trial, and DOJ under the Biden administration is continuing this relentless obstruction that some legal experts say is an abuse of power. In February the DOJ filed an extreme emergency petition called a writ of mandamus to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals – its seventh such petition in this case over the past nine years – in a last-ditch effort to bypass the normal course of civil litigation procedure and avoid facing evidence and real accountability at trial. In response, the 21 Juliana plaintiffs, their attorneys, and supporters are amplifying calls to let “America’s climate case” go to trial and let youth voices be heard in open court. Sunday’s rally was a key demonstration of that, along with more than 70,000 emails sent to President Biden and his administration in recent weeks and petitions with over 300,000 signatures delivered to the White House and Department of Justice. At the start of the “Save Juliana” rally, youth plaintiffs from Juliana and several other climate cases, all spearheaded by the Oregon-based nonprofit law firm Our Children’s Trust, stood behind a giant banner and donned cloth gags to protest their attempted silencing by the US government. “For almost nine years, the Juliana plaintiffs have tirelessly fought to have their day in court. They have endured extreme legal tactics from across three presidential administrations aimed at silencing their voices and preventing their case from being heard at trial,” Mat dos Santos, co-executive director of Our Children’s Trust, said during the demonstration. “No other case in the history of this country has faced this level of government persecution. And out of the more than 40,000 cases in front of the DOJ, these extreme legal tactics have been used in only one case – Juliana v. United States,” said Isaac Vergun, one of several Juliana plaintiffs who took part in Sunday’s rally. “Lives are at stake here. Futures are at stake here. And the government continues to try to stop our case from being heard. I am outraged, and you should be too!” Vergun, speaking out on his 22nd birthday, said he will “continue to fight for my future and the future of all generations.” Initially filed in 2015, the Juliana v. US youth climate lawsuit alleges that the federal government is violating young people’s fundamental rights under the US Constitution through systemic actions and policies promoting and perpetuating fossil fuels that are the primary driver of climate destabilization. The climate crisis disproportionately impacts younger generations as its harmful effects worsen over time, and increasingly children, teens and young adults are turning to courts all over the world as the political branches of government fail to take sufficient actions informed by climate science to rein in greenhouse gas emissions and to protect the fundamental rights of youth. Solidarity from Other Youth Plaintiffs Last June a youth climate lawsuit filed against the state of Montana went to trial – the first climate trial of its kind in US history – and following the seven-day proceeding featuring testimony from youth plaintiffs and their expert witnesses, Judge Kathy Seeley ruled in August that the state was in fact violating the Montana constitution with its anti-climate policy that prohibited consideration of GHG emissions and climate impacts in the permitting process. Two of the plaintiffs from that case, Held v. State of Montana, which is currently on appeal before the Montana Supreme Court, spoke in support of the Juliana plaintiffs at Sunday’s rally. “We had our right to a fair trial and that is exactly what Juliana deserves,” said 20-year-old Olivia Vesovich from Missoula, Montana. “I feel a small bit of relief now knowing that in Montana my rights have been recognized and upheld. The Juliana 21 deserve this too,” added Grace Gibson-Snyder, also 20 years old from Missoula. “After over nine years of fighting for their rights, they deserve their day in court.” Lead youth plaintiffs from two other climate cases, Layla H. v. Commonwealth of Virginia and Genesis B. v. U.S. EPA, also spoke at the rally expressing solidarity with the Juliana plaintiffs. “We are all here today because we believe in holding our national and state governments accountable,” said Virginia plaintiff Layla H. “Our lawsuit was filed in 2022. And now we too are facing opposition from a government that does not want us to testify in open court.” The trial court tossed out this case before it could go to trial, and last month the Virginia Court of Appeals heard oral arguments on the appeal of that dismissal. The Genesis case, filed in December 2023 by 18 children in California against the US Environmental Protection Agency, will have a hearing on April 29 in Los Angeles on the government defendants’ motion to dismiss. “On April 29 we will have the opportunity to present oral arguments in Los Angeles to federal district court judge Fitzgerald on why our case should proceed to trial,” lead plaintiff Genesis Butler told supporters during the rally. Federal Trial Court Judge, 30 Members of Congress Support “America’s Climate Case” Going to Trial On Friday, April 19, US District Judge Ann Aiken, the trial court judge who has ruled several times that the Juliana case should go to trial, responded to DOJ’s mandamus petition in a filing recommending that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals deny the petition. She explained that the government can raise objections to her decisions in the normal course of appeal after a trial. “We’re pleased that Judge Aiken told the Ninth Circuit that DOJ is wrong on the law and cannot abuse an emergency procedure to rip this case out of the hands of the trial court. It is long past time for this case to go to trial,” Julia Olson, founder and chief legal counsel for Our Children’s Trust, said in a statement responding to the filing. More than two dozen members of Congress submitted an amicus brief in late March also urging the Ninth Circuit Court to reject DOJ’s petition. “Given the overwhelming evidence in the record that Defendants’ conduct perpetuates the present climate change crisis, the Court has a duty to assess the constitutionality of the government’s conduct,” the brief argues. Denying the mandamus petition, the Congressional brief concludes, “would grant these Youth Plaintiffs an opportunity to present their evidence, to secure their constitutional rights, and to save their Nation.”
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Switzerland's Insufficient Climate Mitigation Measures violate European Convention on Human Rights, Court FindsA regional human rights court in Europe ruled today for the first time in its 65-year history that the climate crisis is a serious threat to human rights, finding that the Swiss government’s insufficient measures to address climate change constitute violations of the European Convention on Human Rights. The historic verdict is a win for citizens seeking to hold their governments accountable through the courts for inadequate climate action, and it could have ripple effects across Europe and beyond in influencing other rights-based climate cases, experts say.
The European Court of Human Rights delivered the verdict in a public hearing on Tuesday, April 9. The Court also issued decisions in two other climate cases during that session - including cases brought by six Portuguese youths against 32 European countries and by a former mayor of a French coastal village – deciding against these applicants on procedural grounds. The ruling in the case against Switzerland, brought by a group of older Swiss women (ages 64+) who are particularly vulnerable to adverse health impacts from extreme heat events, established that protection from climate-related harms is a legal obligation of European states under Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights. The Court found that Article 8 (right to private and family life) includes protection from “serious adverse effects of climate change on lives, health, well-being and quality of life,” and that Switzerland’s current climate policies fall short of ensuring this protection for its citizenry. Additionally, the Court ruled that the Swiss senior women were not granted their right to a fair trial in Switzerland’s domestic courts, which had tossed out the case without considering the arguments on their merits. That denial of a fair hearing violates Article 6 (Section 1) of the Convention, the Court found. Initially filed in 2016 by an association called Swiss Senior Women for Climate Protection, the case Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz and Others v. Switzerland applied to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France for consideration in 2020 following exhaustion of domestic remedies with a rejection that year by the Swiss Supreme Court. The human rights court fast-tracked the case, with a hearing before the Grand Chamber held on March 29, 2023. A “Win for All Generations” Now, a year later, the Swiss senior women and their lawyers as well as supporters are celebrating the landmark judgment. “I am absolutely overwhelmed and extremely proud that after nine years of intensive work, the senior women have finally got their due. This is an indescribable moment,” Cordelia Bähr, lead lawyer for the Swiss Senior Women for Climate Protection, said in a statement. The decision, she added, “will be of great importance for further climate lawsuits against states and companies worldwide and increase their chances of success.” Rosmarie Wydler-Wälti, co-president of Swiss Senior Women for Climate Protection, called the ruling a “victory for all generations.” She said the generation represented by the Portuguese youth applicants in the climate case Duarte Agostinho and Others v. Portugal and 32 Others will especially benefit from a “long-term improved climate.” The human rights court ultimately found the Agostinho case to be “inadmissible” since it asked the court to rule on the conduct of multiple European states, thereby raising concerns over what’s called extraterritorial jurisdiction. One attorney representing the Portuguese youth, however, said that the Court’s ruling in the senior women’s case against Switzerland in effect achieves what his young clients were seeking. “Today’s ruling against Switzerland sets a historic precedent that applies to all European countries,” Gerry Liston, senior lawyer with the Global Legal Action Network, said in a statement posted via X (formerly known as Twitter). “It means that all European countries must urgently revise their targets so that they are science-based and aligned to 1.5 degrees. This is a massive win for all generations.” A Swiss government representative for the Federal Office of Justice said the government has “taken note” of the ruling. “The judgment is final. Together with the authorities concerned, the FOJ will now analyze the comprehensive ruling and examine what measures Switzerland needs to take in the future,” Ingrid Ryser of the Federal Office of Justice said in an emailed statement. “Climate Action is a Legal Duty” The landmark verdict could have far-reaching implications beyond Switzerland, as litigants brining other climate accountability cases against governments now have an authoritative decision to point to from an international court finding that the climate crisis, and insufficient government action to address it, threatens human rights. “Today’s ruling from the European Court of Human Rights will give a huge boost to communities around the world who are demanding greater climate action from their governments. The Court has affirmed that climate action is a legal duty, and that our governments must adopt much stronger efforts to combat climate change in order to protect all of our human rights,” said Lucy Maxwell, co-director of the Climate Litigation Network. “We expect this ruling to influence climate action and climate litigation across Europe and far beyond,” Joie Chowdhury, senior attorney with the Center for International Environmental Law, said in a statement. “Today’s historic judgment in Verein Klimaseniorinnen Schweiz and Others v. Switzerland – the first ruling by an international human rights court on the inadequacy of States’ climate action – leaves no doubt: the climate crisis is a human rights crisis, and States have human rights obligations to act urgently and effectively and in line with the best available science to prevent further devastation and harm to people and the environment.” Efforts to hold major corporations and governments accountable through the courts for policies and actions that fuel the climate crisis are on the rise around the world, and especially so in Europe. This week and next will see critical developments in European climate accountability litigation. Hearings on the appeal of the landmark 2021 verdict in Milieudefensie et al. v. Royal Dutch Shell, in which a Dutch court ruled that the oil and gas major Shell must reduce CO2 emissions across its entire supply chain by a net 45% by 2030 in line with the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement, start this week in The Hague, Netherlands. Since that May 2021 ruling – the first of its kind in the world against a fossil fuel behemoth – Shell has moved its headquarters to the UK and dropped “Royal Dutch” from its name; it has also appealed the verdict, and the Dutch climate campaigners that brought the lawsuit say Shell is flagrantly disregarding its court-mandated emissions reduction obligation. The appeal is a key opportunity for them to urge the courts to enforce the 2021 verdict, particularly in light of the latest climate science and expert analyses warning that society and major oil and gas producers are way off track to meeting international climate targets. “The scientific basis on which we’ve founded our claims against Shell has only solidified. In court, it’s facts that matter, which is why I am confident that we can once again convince the judges that Shell needs to act in line with international climate agreements,” Roger Cox, lawyer for Milieudefensie (Friends of the Earth Netherlands), said in a statement. The Shell case builds upon the historic Urgenda climate case against the Dutch state, where the courts determined that the Netherlands must reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 25% by 2020. It was the first climate lawsuit in the world to establish that a national government has a legal duty to protect human rights by taking more ambitious climate action to mitigate serious climate harms. The Urgenda case has inspired a wave of rights-based climate lawsuits against governments throughout Europe (and beyond), and now a regional human rights court is set to deliver highly-anticipated decisions in a trio of climate cases that could have major ramifications for European climate policies. Next week on Tuesday, April 9, the European Court of Human Rights will hand down rulings in three climate lawsuits heard by the Court’s Grand Chamber last year. The cases, brought by Portuguese youths, an association of elder Swiss women, and by a French citizen and former mayor of a coastal village, all challenge government climate policies as insufficient to protect citizens’ human rights against the ravages of the unfolding climate emergency. Shell “Can’t Bolt from the Courtroom” It was almost exactly three years ago that the District Court of The Hague issued its historic ruling against Shell, hailed by climate advocates as a “watershed” moment and a win for climate accountability and justice. This week, starting on Tuesday, April 2, Milieudefensie and Shell will be back in court as the company tries to get the 2021 ruling overturned on appeal. In a July 2021 statement on its decision to appeal, Shell suggested that it was unfair to single it out with such a verdict, with then-CEO Ben van Beurden claiming that “a court judgment, against a single company, is not effective.” Since then, Shell has appeared to refuse to comply with the court’s order that it slash its emissions by almost half by the end of the decade, as the company has doubled down on oil and gas production despite expert warnings that development of new oil and gas is not needed in net zero emissions pathways and would be incompatible with limiting warming to 1.5°C. A new report from Milieudefensie and Oil Change International reveals that Shell plans to continue extracting fossil fuels for decades to come. Shell has already approved 20 new oil and gas projects since the court verdict and it has another 813 assets yet to be developed. A Shell spokesperson previously told Climate in the Courts, in response to the report, that it expects liquified natural gas (LNG) “will play a critical role in the [energy] transition,” adding that the court ruling “gives Shell broad discretion to determine how the emissions reduction should be achieved. Importantly,” the spokesperson said, “the court did not impose a prohibition on new oil and gas investments.” Dutch climate campaigners, however, argue that Shell is not taking its emissions reduction obligation seriously and seems to be intent on driving more climate breakdown with its continued oil and gas investments. “We are holding Shell accountable with this case, because the climate crisis will only get worse if Shell simply continues to invest in oil and gas,” Andy Palmen, director of Greenpeace Netherlands, said in a statement. “It is outrageous that Shell is ignoring the earlier court ruling and going full steam ahead with liquefied gas: LNG,” added Liset Meddens, founder of Fossil-Free NL. “The run on LNG is leaving a trail of destruction: for example, people in the US are struggling with the consequences of fracking, coastal destruction and sickening emissions. Moreover, LNG is a disaster for the climate due to numerous leaks of methane. This appeal is incredibly important to demand justice, not only for a livable planet, but also for the health of all residents around this devastating industry.” In addition to prioritizing growing its LNG business, Shell has cut spending on renewable energy and has now slightly scaled back its target for reducing the ‘net carbon intensity’ of the energy products it sells – the company is now aiming for a 15-20% reduction by 2030 (its previous target was 20% by 2030). Net carbon intensity, however, is not the same as absolute emissions reductions, meaning that Shell’s overall emissions can increase even as it lowers the carbon intensity of its products by producing more gas for example, since gas emits less CO2 when burned than oil or coal (though fossil gas is comprised almost entirely of methane, a greenhouse gas more potent than CO2). Still, Shell says it strives to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 across its operations and energy products, and says it believes its strategy “supports the more ambitious goal of the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.” But a new assessment from Carbon Tracker finds that none of the top 25 oil and gas companies (Shell included) are currently aligned with the Paris Agreement goals. That means that Shell is not on track to reduce its entire supply chain emissions by 45% by 2030, as the Dutch district court had ordered. Milieudefensie will make this clear to the Court of Appeal, and will argue that Shell should not be allowed to evade its emissions reduction obligation. “Shell is constantly trying to run away from its responsibility to stop dangerous climate change, but they can't bolt from the courtroom,” said Donald Pols, director of Milieudefensie. “Climate scientists warn that we need to act even faster than originally thought. Shell may keep putting up smokescreens, but the facts are crystal clear. Their emissions need to be drastically cut.” The hearings at the Court of Appeal will take place April 2, April 3, and April 4, and will wrap up next week on April 12. Human Rights Court Set to Deliver Climate Case Verdicts
Also next week, on April 9, the European Court of Human Rights will deliver its decisions in the three climate cases that the Grand Chamber heard last year. The Chamber heard the first two cases - KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz and Others v. Switzerland and Carême v. France - on March 29, 2023, and the third one, Duarte Agostinho and Others v. Portugal and 32 Others, on September 27, 2023. The Agostinho case is particularly groundbreaking because it marks the first time that youth are alleging human rights violations by dozens of European countries in the context of climate change in a single case. If the court finds in favor of the young applicants, then the 33 European countries that are parties to the case (all 27 nations in the EU plus Norway, Russia, Switzerland, Turkey, and the UK) would likely have to reassess their domestic climate policies to ensure they are aligned with what the best available science says is necessary to safeguard human rights. According to the Global Legal Action Network, which is supporting the youth applicants in this case, a positive ruling would “be the equivalent of a legally binding regional treaty compelling the Respondent countries to rapidly accelerate their climate action.” The case against Switzerland, brought by senior Swiss women who say that inadequate climate action leaves them. More vulnerable to extreme heat events, could similarly see a landmark judgment compelling the Swiss government to accelerate its emissions reduction efforts. According to Greenpeace Switzerland, which is supporting the Swiss women, a ruling in the applicants’ favor would “not only be a groundbreaking success for older women in Switzerland. It would be a victory for all generations, Europe-wide. In order to protect human rights, Switzerland and all Council of Europe states would have to review their climate policy based on the principles developed by the ECHR and, if necessary, strengthen them.” The ECHR’s decisions will be delivered during a public hearing on April 9 at the Human Rights Building at the court in Strasbourg, France at 10:30am CET. A county in southeastern Pennsylvania just north of Philadelphia filed a climate accountability lawsuit on Monday against a handful of major oil and gas companies and their chief trade association, seeking to hold them liable for rising costs associated with recovering from and preparing for increasingly severe climate impacts such as extreme heat and intense storms and flooding.
“In recent years Bucks County has faced unprecedented weather events that have repeatedly put both our residents and our first responders at risk,” Diane Ellis-Marseglia, chair of the board of commissioners for Bucks County, Pennsylvania, said during a news conference announcing the new lawsuit, which accuses fossil fuel entities of lying about the climate consequences of their products to inflate sales and profits at the expense of communities now grappling with worsening climate disasters. Bucks County is the first community in Pennsylvania to sue Big Oil over alleged climate deception. With the filing, the county joins more than three dozen municipalities and states across the US that are turning to the courts in attempts to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for their role in driving climate breakdown, particularly for historical and ongoing deceptive conduct that has stymied meaningful climate action and delayed the transition away from planet-warming fossil fuels. The county’s lawsuit, filed March 25 in the Court of Common Pleas for Bucks County, brings state tort claims of public and private nuisance, trespass, strict liability, negligent product liability and negligence, and civil conspiracy. Named defendants include BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Shell, Phillips 66, and the American Petroleum Institute. The 170-plus-page complaint lays out evidence explaining how the oil industry knew more than half a century ago about the potentially catastrophic impacts that unrestrained fossil fuel combustion would have on the climate system, yet despite these advanced warnings major oil companies and their trade associations deployed “tobacco-industry-style campaigns to deceive and mislead the public about the damaging nature of their fossil fuel products.” Initially the deceptive campaigns focused on trying to discredit climate science, and more recently they have evolved into disingenuously portraying the fossil fuel business as engaged in and leading solutions to mitigate the problem. “These companies have known since at least the 1950s that their ways of doing business were having calamitous effects on our planet, and rather than change what they were doing or raise the alarm, they lied to all of us,” said Commissioner Gene DiGirolamo. “The taxpayers should not have to foot the bill for these companies and their greed.” Climate in the Courts reached out to several of the defendants for comment. Neither API nor ExxonMobil immediately responded. The county says their move to sue Big Oil is similar to other corporate accountability lawsuits it has brought against opioid companies, PFAS manufacturers, and social media titans. Deceptive business practices are at the heart of the allegations. As the county’s complaint states in its opening: “Rather than warn consumers and the public, fossil fuel companies and their surrogates mounted a disinformation campaign to discredit the scientific consensus on climate change; create doubt in the minds of consumers, the media, teachers, and the public about the climate change impacts of burning fossil fuels; and delay the energy economy’s transition to a lower-carbon future. This successful climate deception campaign had the purpose and effect of inflating and sustaining the market for fossil fuels, which - in turn - drove up greenhouse gas emissions, accelerated global warming, and brought about devastating climate change impacts to Bucks County.” The county has spent and will continue to spend “substantial sums” to deal with climate change impacts such as more intense storms, flooding and storm surge, saltwater intrusion, extreme heat, and droughts, the complaint asserts. “This suit is our tool to recoup costs and fund public works projects like bolstering or replacing bridges, retrofitting county-owned buildings and commencing stormwater management projects, all of which will put us in the best possible position to weather what is certain to come,” said Commissioner Chair Ellis-Marseglia. In terms of requested relief, the county seeks compensatory and punitive damages, disgorgements of profits, recovery of litigation costs and equitable relief including nuisance abatement. The law firm DiCello Levitt is providing outside counsel for the county in this case. DiCello Levitt is also helping represent the city of Chicago in its climate lawsuit against Big Oil, which the city filed in February. Bucks County’s filing this week suggests that the the litigation pressure on Big Oil is not letting up anytime soon, as climate deception cases in the US continue mounting. “More than one in four people in the US now live in a community suing major fossil fuel companies to make them pay for their climate deception,” Richard Wiles, president of the climate accountability advocacy organization Center for Climate Integrity, said in a statement. “Bucks County is the first Pennsylvania government to file a climate accountability lawsuit against Big Oil companies, but it likely won’t be the last.” Attorneys representing young Americans in two separate constitutional climate lawsuits - one at the state level in Montana and the other against the federal government - have filed response briefs as government defendants in each case seek to evade accountability through the courts for policies and actions that exacerbate dangerous climate change. In the Montana case, a trial court judge delivered a “historic” verdict last August in favor of the 16 youth plaintiffs suing their state government, finding a state policy that prohibits evaluation of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change in environmental reviews required during the permitting process to be unconstitutional. That ruling followed a landmark seven-day trial in June that saw climate scientists, medical professionals and other experts testify along with the youth plaintiffs, providing the court with clear and compelling evidence tying government-authorized climate pollution to harm to Montana’s environment and its young citizens. It was the first-ever trial in US history in a climate case brought by youth on constitutional grounds, and the judge’s verdict notably recognized that the right to a clean and healthful environment guaranteed under Montana’s constitution includes climate. The state defendants have appealed the ruling, currently pending before the Montana Supreme Court. In its challenge of the trial court’s verdict, the state does not refute the underlying facts of the case or does not even directly argue that the judge was wrong in finding the state’s policy unconstitutional. Instead, the state asserts the judge should not have been allowed to decide the case in the first place. In the federal case, Juliana et al. v. United States, the 21 youth plaintiffs are fighting what their attorneys say is an “unprecedented” attempt by the government defendants to silence them and prevent their testimony and evidence from ever being heard at trial. This case challenges systemic government conduct that contributes to dangerous levels of GHG emissions and worsens the climate crisis, and last year a trial court judge in Oregon ruled that an amended and narrower version of the case could proceed to trial. But government defendants have turned to an appeals court in a last-ditch effort to quash the case before trial, using an extreme procedural maneuver called a “writ or mandamus” to bypass the standard course of litigation, including trial and subsequent appeals. This is the seventh time overall that the government has resorted to this tactic in this case, setting it apart from all other cases in which the US government is a defendant. Youth plaintiffs’ attorneys and other legal experts backing them say this behavior is an “abuse of power.” Our Children’s Trust, an Oregon-based nonprofit law firm representing young people in constitutional climate litigation, is now pushing back against government defendants’ attempts to reverse the trial court decision in the Montana case, and to avoid trial at all costs in the federal Juliana case. Youth Respond to State’s Appeal of “Landmark Victory” in Montana The trial and district court verdict last summer in Held et al. v. State of Montana marked the first time in the US that a government had been held accountable through the courts under constitutional provisions for actions that contribute to the climate crisis. District Court Judge Kathy Seeley concluded in her August 14, 2023 order that the state’s policy barring consideration of climate impacts in environmental reviews under the Montana Environmental Policy Act (MEPA) violated youth plaintiffs’ constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment, noting that this right “includes climate as part of the environmental life-support system.” Seeley’s order struck down the anti-climate policy, which she termed the “MEPA limitation.” The Montana government defendants submitted their opening brief on appeal in February, in which they argue the youth plaintiffs did not have “standing” or permission to sue because the policy at issue is merely procedural and could not substantively cause climate harms; invalidating the policy, they further argue, would not solve global climate change. In a response brief filed on March 13, attorneys for the Montana youth contend that Seeley was correct in finding the plaintiffs had established standing. The MEPA limitation requires state agencies to turn a blind eye to the GHG emissions and climate impacts of fossil fuel projects, shielding them from public scrutiny, and this does in turn contribute to these projects advancing through the permitting process and ultimately creating harmful emissions. As the brief argues, “this case is not about the impacts of climate change writ large, but rather about how Montana’s environment and natural resources, and Montana’s children and youth, are being harmed by Defendants’ actions that cause and contribute to climate harms within Montana.”
The youths’ attorneys essentially say that Seeley’s decision, not only on the standing question but also on finding the MEPA limitation unconstitutional, was correct, and they urge the state Supreme Court to uphold the verdict. “These sixteen youth Plaintiffs are relying on this Court to confirm what they have learned in school: there are three branches of government, and when the political branches violate their fundamental constitutional rights, they can trust an independent judiciary to safeguard their rights,” the response brief concludes. Several of the youth plaintiffs called out their state government for attempting to escape accountability and deny them their constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment. “Today, on my 18th birthday, Montanans’ wellbeing and access to a healthy environment is worsening, while Defendants repeatedly attempt to bog us down, avoid accountability for their actions, and continue with business as usual,” plaintiff Eva L. said in a statement issued on March 13. “We achieved a landmark victory and now the state is failing to make a sound legal argument in its appeal while still actively fighting against our right to a livable planet,” added lead plaintiff Rikki Held. Supporters of the Montana youth filing amici or friend of the court briefs include former Montana Supreme Court justices, constitutional and environmental law professors, children’s rights advocates, tribal and conservation groups, public health experts and doctors, members of the outdoor recreation industry, and others. Amici briefs backing the state’s appeal came from conservative political and business interests and extractive industries. In a statement, Our Children’s Trust, which spearheaded the Montana case, said the district court ultimately made the right decision and that the weight of the evidence is on the plaintiffs’ side. “The District Court correctly found, after a seven-day trial, Defendants are violating Plaintiffs’ fundamental constitutional rights, including their right to a clean and healthful environment,” said Nate Bellinger, senior staff attorney with Our Children’s Trust. “We are confident that after the Supreme Court reviews the extensive trial record, including the testimony from Plaintiffs and experts, it will come to the same conclusion and uphold the District Court’s ruling.” US Government “Not Above the Law” Meanwhile, federal government defendants in the Juliana v. US climate case are similarly arguing that the trial court lacks authority to decide the case. But unlike the Montana case that went through the normal course of litigation, including trial and now a final appeal, the federal case has been bogged down by relentless and unprecedented attempts by the government to evade a trial. Since the Juliana lawsuit was first filed in 2015, government lawyers with the US Department of Justice (DOJ) have made 22 attempts across three presidential administrations to stop the case, according to Our Children’s Trust. In a March 21 filing with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Our Children’s Trust attorneys representing the 21 youth plaintiffs in Juliana responded to DOJ’s latest bid to terminate the case before trial. DOJ filed what’s called a ‘petition for a writ of mandamus’ with the Ninth Circuit in February - an extreme and extraordinarily rare tactic to override the decision or action of a lower court, typically reserved only for emergency situations. Despite the gravity of the unfolding climate emergency, the US government appears to consider having to defend itself at trial and face evidence of its role in fueling climate breakdown as the real emergency, as DOJ’s February petition is its seventh overall mandamus petition in this single case. This repetitious pattern, legal experts say, is unheard of in American civil litigation. "To file again and again and again for writs of mandamus to keep any evidence at all from being heard is an abuse of power. The plaintiffs have a case to make. Let them make it,” Barbara Bennett Woodhouse, a distinguished professor emeritus at Emory School of Law, said in a statement. Most of DOJ’s previous mandamus petitions, including two to the US Supreme Court, came during the Trump administration in 2018, the year that Juliana was supposed to go to trial. The Ninth Circuit Court rejected several mandamus petitions from DOJ in this case in 2018, a fact that Our Children’s Trust attorneys point to in their new filing with that Court. The Ninth Circuit “reluctantly” decided in a divided 2-1 opinion in January 2020 that the case should be dismissed, citing concerns that courts could not grant the requested remedy ordering the government to develop a climate recovery plan. But that decision was made in an early appeal (called an ‘interlocutory appeal’), not in a mandamus request, and OCT attorneys argue that DOJ is improperly treating its latest mandamus petition as if it were another appeal. The trial court judge did not “clearly err” in allowing plaintiffs to revise their original complaint to try to cure the redressability issue that was the only basis for the Ninth Circuit’s 2020 dismissal decision, they further argue. Last year, US District Judge Ann Aiken decided the case should proceed to trial under the narrower, revised version of plaintiffs’ complaint, which now seeks only declaratory relief - a court declaration that the government’s policies and practices promoting fossil fuels amounts to violations of youths’ fundamental rights (to life, liberty, and property) under the US Constitution. The case was back on track to proceed to trial before the DOJ filed its latest mandamus petition along with a request to pause proceedings, called a “stay,” which the Ninth Circuit Court recently denied. The Court also ordered the youth plaintiffs’ attorneys to respond to DOJ’s petition. “While they would strongly prefer not to stand trial and await an appeal after final judgment, Defendants are not above the law,” the attorneys with Our Children’s Trust conclude in their response brief. The fate of this landmark climate change lawsuit against the US government now rests in the hands of the Ninth Circuit appeals court. If that court denies the government’s petition, government lawyers could potentially turn to the US Supreme Court. Supporters of the Juliana youth plaintiffs have sent more than 47,000 emails in recent weeks to President Biden and his administration demanding an end to DOJ’s aggressive tactics to kill the case before trial. An in-person rally to amplify the call to let the youth be head in court is planned for April 21 in Washington DC. “Youth are fighting for their lives, quite literally,” Julia Olson, founder and chief legal counsel at Our Children’s Trust, said in a statement. “This is the last opportunity for the Court of Appeals to rule that these youth—whose physical and mental health is threatened by wildfires, extreme heat and floods—deserve to be heard. The fact that the DOJ has gone to such outrageous lengths to silence them points to the gravity of what they have to say.” “We filed the lawsuit because we saw the state of our planet and our climate, knowing that if the government continued contributing to climate change it would get worse,” plaintiff Miko Vergun said. “Our trial dates have been taken away from us multiple times and each year our climate stability gets worse. We can no longer wait. We need to go to court.” A court in the Netherlands handed down what environmental campaigners say is a “historic” verdict today against Dutch airline KLM, finding the company’s sustainability claims in its advertising – including its professed commitment to the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement – to be misleading and in violation of EU consumer law. The ruling sets a “major legal precedent with ramifications across the international aviation sector and for all companies advertising their commitment to the Paris Agreement,” according to UK-based environmental law organization ClientEarth, which represented Dutch climate groups Fossielvrij and Reclame Fossielvrij in their landmark greenwashing lawsuit against KLM. “Companies that publicly advertise commitments to the goals of the Paris Agreement on climate must now ensure that those claims are feasible and concrete, or risk losing in Court,” Johnny White, an attorney with ClientEarth, said in a statement. “This judgment is nothing short of a wake-up call for highly polluting industries and companies that try to sell the image of commitment to the Paris climate goals without having the plans to get there. It leaves the airline industry’s climate PR strategy dead in the water.” The lawsuit, filed in July 2022, was the first worldwide to challenge an airline’s marketing and advertising as unsubstantiated greenwashing in court. The District Court of Amsterdam ultimately agreed with claimants Fossielvrij and Reclame Fossielvrij that KLM’s ads were in breach of the EU Unfair Commercial Practices Directive. The court found the airline’s claims around reducing the climate impact of aviation through use of offsetting products like so-called “sustainable aviation fuels” (SAF) or through supposed carbon offset programs like reforestation were misleading. The ruling, for example, stated: “At the moment, SAF's share in total fuel consumption (and hence CO2 emissions reduction) is still very limited due to various reasons. A more substantial share can only be expected in the distant future, and thus uncertain. The expression is therefore misleading.” In a statement responding to the ruling, KLM said it appreciates the court’s clarification “about what is possible and how we can continue to communicate transparently and honestly about our approach and activities.” KLM further said that it is reviewing the ruling and plans to “return to it substantively at a later date.” White said the court’s decision should serve as a warning to other airlines that use dubious carbon offsetting claims in their marketing. “All airlines and other companies making claims about their products’ environmental impacts that are based on offsetting should take heed from this ruling,” he said. Climate-related marketing claims based on offsetting or compensating activities are increasingly coming under legal scrutiny. Just last year, for example, courts in Sweden, Germany, and Austria ruled that these types of claims were misleading to consumers. The ruling in Austria came in a greenwashing lawsuit filed by Austria's Association for Consumer Information (VKI) against Lufthansa subsidiary Austrian Airlines challenging the airline's ads touting "CO2 neutral" flights that used sustainable aviation fuel. Other airlines ar currently facing similar legal challenges, including an OECD complaint filed against Virgin Atlantic and British Airways in the UK, and a consumer class action lawsuit brought against Delta Air Lines in the US. In the KLM case, the Dutch court stopped short of issuing a ban on future similar claims, and KLM had already retracted its challenged advertising in response to the lawsuit. The Dutch campaign groups are still calling for a tobacco-style ban on fossil fuel advertising.
“Tackling greenwashing is currently a cat-and-mouse game. Just when one misleading campaign is stopped, ten more pop up. You can only react when the harm is already done: people have already seen the ads,” said Rosanne Rootert, campaigner at Fossielvrij Reclame. “A complete ban on fossil advertising, such as for air travel, is the only way to truly eliminate greenwashing by these companies. Lawsuits like this would then be unnecessary.” The Amsterdam district court also found that KLM’s claims around its commitment to the Paris Agreement and its aims to achieve net-zero emissions were too optimistic, and therefore misleading, given the limited decarbonization measures it is implementing. ClientEarth said the court’s ruling sets a precedent for corporations touting unsubstantiated net zero promises, and that companies’ “public relations firms and advertising agencies should also take note.” “Today’s judgment is a landmark victory in the fight against greenwashing,” Hiske Arts, campaigner for Fossielvrij, said in a statement. “The significance of the Court’s decision is clear: companies are not allowed to claim they are tackling dangerous climate change when in reality they are fueling the crisis.” The story has been updated to include KLM's response to the ruling as well as with additional context on greenwashing litigation and an additional photo. Shell continues to expand its oil and gas operations and approve development of new extraction projects in an apparent violation of a 2021 Dutch court ruling requiring the oil major to reduce CO2 emissions across its entire supply chain by 45 percent by 2030, a new report suggests. The report released today by Milieudefensie (Friends of the Earth Netherlands) and Oil Change International comes just two weeks before the scheduled court hearings on Shell’s appeal of the landmark verdict. That ruling, issued on May 26, 2021 by the District Court in The Hague in a climate lawsuit brought by Milieudefensie, marked the first time in the world that a court had ordered a polluting company to take responsibility for the climate crisis by reducing emissions and aligning its business with the objectives of the Paris Agreement, which aims to limit global temperature rise to well below 2°C - preferably to 1.5°C. Expert reports and analyses, meanwhile, have confirmed that development of new oil and gas fields is incompatible with mitigation scenarios that hold dangerous warming to the 1.5°C limit. In its 2023 update to its Net Zero Roadmap report, the International Energy Agency states that “there is no need for investment in new coal, oil and natural gas” in the pathway that reduces emissions to net zero by 2050. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns in its 2023 synthesis report that “projected CO2 emissions from existing fossil fuel infrastructure without additional abatement would exceed the remaining carbon budget for 1.5°C.” The head of the IEA, Fatih Birol, further warns in a 2023 report that the oil and gas industry faces “a moment of truth” in terms of its role in the clean energy transition, noting that this transition requires “much lower demand for oil and gas, which means scaling back oil and gas operations over time – not expanding them.” Yet expanding its extractive operations is precisely what Shell is doing, according to the new report titled Shell vs. the Climate: Expanding oil and gas, fueling the climate crisis. The report finds that Shell has approved the development of at least 20 new oil and gas extraction assets since the May 2021 Dutch court verdict. That is double the number of approved new extraction projects reported in a previous briefing from Milieudefensie and OCI in September 2022. The 20 new projects in total could result in emissions of 753 million metric tons of cumulative CO2 pollution, which is more than fives times the emissions of the Netherlands in 2021, the report notes. Shell approved six new oil and gas projects in 2023 alone. Any new project approvals are at odds with the Paris Agreement, Milieudefensie and OCI argue. “Any expansion of oil and gas goes against the court order for Shell to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 45% by 2030,” the organizations state in a press release. The report also found that Shell has ownership in full or in part in over 800 oil and gas assets yet to be developed, which threaten an additional 5.3 billion metric tons of CO2 emissions (38 times the emissions of the Netherlands in 2021). The projected volume of undeveloped oil and gas in Shell’s portfolio has increased by 24 percent since the 2022 briefing. “Rather than writing off undeveloped oil and gas as incompatible with 1.5°C, Shell is actively seeking more of it,” the report explains. Data on Shell’s assets, including production and investment plans, comes from Rystad Energy. The analysis from Milieudefensie and OCI is limited to the production and resulting emissions from oil and gas that Shell directly extracts, which makes up less than half of the total products that Shell sells. The vast majority of Shell’s supply chain emissions comes from the combustion of the company’s products (whether extracted directly by Shell or not), known as “Scope 3” emissions, and Shell is obligated to cut these emissions per the District Court’s mandate. Rather than shrinking its oil and gas business or investing more in renewable energy or other alternative fuels, however, Shell is doubling down on its extractive operations after raking in record profits of around $40 billion in 2022. Shell is expected to invest more than $13 billion annually in upstream oil and gas extraction through 2030, with much of that projected to go towards developing new extraction assets, particularly in fossil gas and “liquefied natural gas” (LNG). Last year Shell announced it would not gradually decline oil production by 1-2% annually until 2030, as the company had previously promised. Shell has also cut spending on its “renewables and energy solutions” segment.
In its Statement of Defense on Appeal filed with the Dutch appeals court, Milieudefensie argues that Shell’s current corporate policy “still provides for very large-scale investments in oil and gas and will consequently lead to no or hardly any emissions reductions on the part of the Shell Group by 2030.” The implication is that Shell is therefore defying the reduction obligation that the District Court imposed on it. As Miliudefensie notes in its Statement: “Shell has chosen to largely ignore a judgment which was declared to be immediately enforceable.” “The Court ordered Shell to reduce its total emissions by 45%. Since the vast majority of emissions caused by Shell’s business activities stem from the production, processing and sales of oil and gas, Shell must begin winding down these fossil fuel businesses across the board,” Milieudefensie’s Sumeyra Arslan, a co-author of the new report, told Climate in the Courts. “Serving as one of the important evidences in the appeal, this report shows what hides behind the greenwashing efforts of Shell,” she added. “The new strategy of Shell to focus more on fossil fuels and reduce its investments in renewables is a recipe for disaster and is not in line with the court's verdict.” In an emailed statement responding to the report, Shell argued that it is “playing an important role in the energy transition by providing energy needed today while investing in low-carbon energy solutions of the future.” “We expect LNG will play a critical role in the transition as it provides a secure supply of energy and will enable the world to make the most immediate progress in reducing emissions by replacing coal growth in industry,” a Shell spokesperson said in the statement. “Note that the court ruling in the climate case gives Shell broad discretion to determine how the emissions reduction should be achieved. Importantly, the court did not impose a prohibition on new oil and gas investments,” the Shell spokesperson added. The Court of Appeal in The Hague will hear Shell’s appeal of the 2021 verdict in early April, with proceedings scheduled for April 2, 3, 4, and 12, 2024. Lawyers representing oil and gas industry defendants in a climate lawsuit brought by the city and county of Honolulu are calling on the US Supreme Court to quash this suit and others targeting the industry as the cases start advancing towards trial. Warning that the industry faces the threat of billions of dollars in damage awards if the litigation proceeds, the industry lawyers argue in a freshly filed petition that the Court “should put a stop to it”, adding that this is likely the Court’s only chance to weigh in on these high stakes climate court cases in the near future.
In a certiorari petition submitted to the Supreme Court of the United States on February 28, the oil companies say the Court should decide “whether the state-law claims asserted in this nationwide litigation are even allowable before the energy industry is threatened with potentially enormous judgments.” Specifically, they are asking the Court to review a recent ruling from the Hawaii Supreme Court affirming that Honolulu’s climate lawsuit could advance towards trial under state tort law. The industry defendants in this case, which include major petroleum producers like Chevron, BP, and ExxonMobil, had argued unsuccessfully that federal law preempts state law in cases they say are about global climate change. Now they want the nation’s highest federal court to decide this question of whether federal law precludes state law claims in climate liability lawsuits. Honolulu’s case is one of more than two dozen cases brought by municipal and state governments against fossil fuel companies alleging the companies lied to consumers and the public about the climate consequences of their products, effectively inflating sales and delaying and obstructing the transition away from fossil fuels. Some of the lawsuits seek to recover damage costs associated with localized climate impacts and adaptation, some seek to hold companies like Exxon liable for alleged consumer fraud, and others take a hybrid cost-recovery and consumer fraud approach. But for the most part the cases are all brought under state law, including tort claims like public nuisance and failure to warn as well as violations of state and local consumer protection statutes. A pair of cases filed by communities in Puerto Rico features federal racketeering charges as well as state law claims. Similar to tobacco and opioid litigation, these climate lawsuits attempt to hold a powerful industry accountable for the harmful effects of its products and for its deceptive conduct. The new Supreme Court petition comes as many of the climate lawsuits have overcome initial procedural hurdles and are starting to address the substantive allegations – the “merits.” As industry lawyers explain in the petition: “Litigation on the merits in these cases is beginning in earnest, with discovery and pretrial proceedings underway in state courts.” Discovery is the pre-trial evidence gathering phase, and in these types of cases about corporate deceit, that involves obtaining internal documents and questioning former and current industry executives and insiders under oath. Fossil fuel defendants in Honolulu’s case and other climate suits against them have tried to avoid getting to this stage in litigation by asserting that only federal courts should handle these proceedings. Courts have resoundingly rejected these arguments, but the bid to try to force the lawsuits into federal courts has effectively delayed the litigation from swiftly getting to trial. At every turn, industry lawyers have mounted challenges to procedural rulings against their clients. They have even sought US Supreme Court review several times already. In October 2020, the Supreme Court did grant their petition to review a narrow technical matter in a climate case brought by the city of Baltimore. The Court heard oral arguments in January 2021, and its decision directed several federal appeals courts to reconsider defendants’ arguments in a handful of climate suits including Baltimore’s case. More recently, the Supreme Court in 2023 declined to take up the industry’s petitions to review appellate rulings affirming that these climate cases can proceed in state courts. In an order list issued on April 24, 2023, the Court denied cert petitions in climate cases filed by the city and county of Boulder in Colorado, the city of Baltimore, several coastal communities in California, Honolulu, and the state of Rhode Island. In denying the petition in Boulder’s case, the Court noted that Justice Samuel Alito – who owns stock in several oil companies – took no part in the decision, and that Justice Brett Kavanaugh was in favor of granting the petition. It remains to be seen whether the Court will accept or decline Big Oil’s latest petition, which one climate law expert described as a “Hail Mary” bid. “The fact that the Court denied cert in the Boulder case despite Kavanaugh’s dissent suggests there aren’t 4 votes to grant it in this case,” Patrick Parenteau, emeritus professor of law and senior fellow for climate policy at Vermont Law and Graduate School, told Climate in the Courts. Michael Gerrard, faculty director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School, said he fully expected industry defendants to once again turn to the Supreme Court for help. “This may be their best and last shot at avoiding multiple state court trials that would put them in a harsh spotlight and cost them very high legal fees, with a risk of massive judgments at the end,” Gerrard said. He added that he expects fossil fuel defendants in some of the other climate cases to try to further delay proceedings by requesting that courts pause or “stay” the litigation while the Supreme Court petition in Honolulu’s case is pending. “If the Supreme Court takes the case we probably won't have a decision until well into 2025,” Gerrard told Climate in the Courts. Oil Companies Say Lawsuits Pose a “Serious Threat” to Their Industry Lawyers working on behalf of Chevron and ExxonMobil appear to be leading fossil fuel defendants’ latest plea to the US Supreme Court to intervene before the companies are forced to face trial. Theodore J. Boutrous Jr. of the firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP - lead counsel for Chevron - and Kannon Shanmugam and Theodore Wells, Jr. of the firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP – representing Exxon – are among the named lawyers listed on the front of the new cert petition in Sunoco LP et al., Petitioners v. City and County of Honolulu et al. In their petition, they argue that climate accountability lawsuits like Honolulu’s case are essentially impermissible attempts to regulate interstate and global greenhouse gas emissions, which they say are the source of the alleged climate damages. According to the industry lawyers, the Hawaii Supreme Court got it wrong in finding that “emissions were not the source of [Honolulu’s] injuries; [companies’] marketing and public statements were.” It is an argument they have repeatedly made in hearings and briefs in these climate cases, attempting to characterize the litigation as focused on global emissions while deflecting from the core allegations of deception, fraud and misleading marketing and advertising. “Industry spokespersons keep trying to make these cases about regulation and policy and politics,” Parenteau said. “But they aren’t about any of that. They are about the recovery of some of the costs incurred as a result of the companies deliberate and ongoing campaign of lies and deception about the dangers of their products.” More than three dozen communities across the US have filed climate accountability lawsuits against Big Oil over the past seven years, and more cases continue to be filed. The most recent filing came about two weeks ago by Chicago, the third-largest city in the country. “Those cases present a serious threat to one of the Nation’s most vital industries,” lawyers for Big Oil state explicitly in their cert petition. Climate accountability advocates say the industry feels the walls closing in and is desperate to evade having to face trial. “In light of the growing body of evidence of Big Oil’s climate fraud and deception, and lower courts’ continued rejection of their efforts to escape trial, it’s no surprise that fossil fuel companies are once again attempting to escape accountability,” said Alyssa Johl, general counsel with the Center for Climate Integrity. “Communities across the country deserve their day in court to hold Big Oil accountable for their climate lies and the damages they’ve caused.” The State of New York has filed a climate lawsuit against JBS, the world’s largest beef producer, seeking to hold it accountable for alleged misrepresentations and misleading marketing. The company has engaged in deceptive business practices and fraud through greenwashing claims about the environmental sustainability of its beef products and about its ability to meet its target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions across its supply chain to net zero by 2040, the State’s lawsuit argues.
Industrial agriculture, and especially beef production, is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions that are driving climate breakdown. The world’s five biggest meat and dairy corporations together account for more annual GHG emissions than oil majors like ExxonMobil, Shell and BP do individually, and JBS’s emissions in 2021 were greater than that of Ireland. Yet despite its sizable climate impact, JBS highlights its net zero climate commitment and makes other environmental claims through advertisements and marketing that cater towards environmentally-conscious consumers. According to the New York Attorney General Office, such representations are deceptive and take advantage of consumers’ preference for sustainable products. “When companies falsely advertise their commitment to sustainability, they are misleading consumers and endangering our planet,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement. “JBS USA’s greenwashing exploits the pocketbooks of everyday Americans and the promise of a healthy planet for future generations. My office will always ensure that companies do not abuse the environment and the trust of hardworking consumers for profit.” The lawsuit was filed on February 28 in the New York County Supreme Court in New York City against JBS USA Food Company – JBS’s American subsidiary – and alleges violations of New York business law for false advertising and deceptive acts or practices and violations of state law pertaining to fraudulent conduct. New York seeks a court order for the company to cease its misleading marketing, and it also seeks civil penalties and disgorgement of profits. The state says that JBS continues to promote its “net zero by 2040” climate commitment even while it plans to expand beef production and even after the Better Business Bureau’s National Advertising Division determined that the company’s claims around this target were unsubstantiated and therefore create a misleading impression. According to the state’s complaint, JBS’s net zero target is “not feasible given the JBS Group’s current levels of livestock production and the company’s plans to grow global demand for its products.” The complaint points to a New York Times advertisement from April 2021 as an example of the company’s allegedly false representations. In that ad, JBS claims: “Agriculture can be part of the climate solution. Bacon, chicken wings and steak with net-zero emissions. It’s possible.” Climate scientists, however, explain in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest scientific assessment that greenhouse gas emissions from animal agriculture, namely methane and nitrous oxide, cannot be mitigated effectively though existing or proposed technologies, and that production of and demand for meat, especially beef, must be curbed. Animal agriculture is responsible for more than 14 percent of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions annually. JBS defended its environmental commitments in a comment responding to the new lawsuit. “JBS takes its commitment to a more sustainable future for agriculture very seriously,” Nikki Richardson, a company spokesperson, said in an emailed statement. “We disagree with the action taken today by the New York Attorney General’s office. JBS will continue to partner with farmers, ranchers and our food system partners around the world to help feed a growing population while using fewer resources and reducing agriculture’s environmental impact. Our belief that American agriculture can help sustainably feed the world is undeterred.” Environmental advocates and campaigners applauded the New York Attorney General Office for taking legal action against one of the world’s largest corporate greenhouse gas emitters. “JBS is one of the top global companies contributing to climate change and has proven time and again it can't be trusted to self-police,” Monique Mikhail, campaigns director in agriculture climate finance at Friends of the Earth U.S., said in a press release. “Corporations should and must be held responsible when they mislead the public about their harmful impacts.” “As the largest meat company in the world, with a significant climate footprint, JBS has a responsibility to be fully transparent about its emissions, reduction strategies, and outcomes,” said Ben Lilliston, director of climate strategies at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. “The New York Attorney General’s action today not only holds JBS accountable for its unsubstantiated net-zero claim, but also sends a strong signal to other companies that empty promises do not pass for climate action.” In November the New York attorney general filed a groundbreaking lawsuit against PepsiCo to hold the company accountable for its single-use plastic packaging that is polluting the environment, since most plastic cannot be recycled. The lawsuit claims PepsiCo failed to warn consumers about health and environmental risks associated with its plastic packaging and misleads consumers about its efforts to tackle the plastic problem. Like animal agriculture and beef production, plastic is a big contributor to greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change. The city of Chicago filed a climate accountability lawsuit against half a dozen major oil and gas companies and their chief lobbyist group the American Petroleum Institute, charging them with deceptive conduct that resulted in escalating climate-related damages and costs incurred by the city and its residents. Chicago’s lawsuit is the latest from a US jurisdiction to target Big Oil for its alleged climate deception, and comes just five months after the state of California brought a similar climate lawsuit that was hailed as a “watershed moment” in the fight for climate accountability.
Chicago filed its complaint on Tuesday, February 20 in the Circuit Court of Cook County. The complaint alleges causes of action under state tort law, including public nuisance, negligence, and failure to warn as well as civil conspiracy and unjust enrichment and violations of local city laws concerning consumer fraud and misrepresentations relating to sales and advertising. In addition to API, the named defendants are BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Phillips 66, and Shell. These companies and API knew more than 50 years ago that burning fossil fuels would have potentially catastrophic consequences for society, yet rather than publicly acknowledging this they doubled down on production and distorted the public’s understanding of climate change to protect profits, the case argues, supported by documented evidence. The petroleum industry funded front groups and campaigns to promote climate denial and block regulatory and policy responses to the looming environmental threat, which has now grown into a full-blown crisis wreaking havoc in communities across the United States and beyond. With its legal filing, Chicago joins more than three dozen jurisdictions in the US that have turned to the courts seeking to hold the oil and gas industry liable for climate change harms. “These companies knowingly deceived Chicago consumers in their endless pursuit of profits. As a result of their conduct, Chicago is enduring extreme heat and precipitation, flooding, sewage flows into Lake Michigan, damage to city infrastructure, and more. That all comes with enormous costs,” Alderman Matt Martin said in a press release. The lawsuit demands that Big Oil shoulder some of these costs. Specifically, the city seeks compensatory and loss-of-use damages, penalties and fines for statutory violations, and disgorgement of profits, as well as a court order that defendants cease their deceptive conduct. While oil and gas companies no longer outright deny that climate change is real, they have shifted their misleading messaging to claiming that their products, particularly fossil gas, are climate friendly and that their industry is leading climate solutions. Oil industry representatives and their allies slammed Chicago’s lawsuit and said courts should not be deciding climate policy. Ryan Meyers, general counsel of the American Petroleum Institute, called Chicago’s action part of an “ongoing, coordinated campaign to wage meritless, politicized lawsuits against a foundational American industry,” the Chicago Sun-Times reported. Phil Goldberg, special counsel for the Manufacturers’ Accountability Project – an industry-backed campaign that pushes back against lawsuits targeting corporate polluters – said in a statement that “this litigation is not the type of action that is going to lead to meaningful solutions,” adding, “courts are simply not the appropriate places to decide climate policy.” Chicago officials, however, say their lawsuit is not about climate policy, but about accountability. “There is no justice without accountability. From the unprecedented poor air quality that we experienced last summer to the basement floodings that our residents on the West Side experienced, the consequences of this crisis are severe, as are the costs of surviving them,” Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said in a press release. “Evidence shows that these Defendants intentionally misled Chicago residents about the climate change-related dangers associated with their oil and gas products,” said Corporation Counsel Mary Richardson-Lowry. “We bring this lawsuit to ensure that the Defendants who have profited from the deception campaign bear responsibility for their conduct.” |
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