What are the arguments on both sides, and what significance and practical impact could the final judgment have? The Montana Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments on Wednesday in a landmark youth constitutional climate case. The hearing comes as the state seeks to overturn the trial court’s groundbreaking decision last summer that delivered a breakthrough victory to the 16 young Montanans who challenged their government over a policy that prohibited consideration of climate change in environmental reviews, effectively shielding fossil fuel projects from public scrutiny over their contributions to the climate crisis during the permitting process.
Montana district court judge Kathy Seeley found this policy, enacted into law as an amendment to the Montana Environmental Policy Act (MEPA), to be in violation of the state’s constitution that provides the right to a clean and healthful environment. Following a seven-day bench trial in June 2023 – the first climate trial of its kind in the US – she ruled on August 14, 2023 wholly in favor of the youth plaintiffs in Held et al. v. State of Montana. Her ruling struck down that law and a related one restricting judicial relief to litigants challenging state fossil fuel permitting decisions on climate grounds. The ruling also affirmed that the young plaintiffs have a constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment, and recognized for the first time that this right “includes climate as part of the environmental life-support system.” The state defendants, who include Republican Governor Greg Gianforte and several state agencies such as the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), promptly appealed the trial court’s ruling. They also requested a stay or a pause on the order taking effect, which Seeley and the state’s Supreme Court both denied. The hearing of the appeal marks another critical juncture for the case, as the Montana Supreme Court will ultimately decide whether or not to uphold the trial court’s decision. Oral arguments before the state’s Supreme Court in Helena are scheduled to start at 9:30am Mountain time on July 10, and a livestream is available here. “An Historic Precedent”? According to Nate Bellinger, a senior attorney with Our Children’s Trust – a nonprofit law firm that represents youth in constitutional climate cases against governments – the Supreme Court will be reviewing the evidentiary trial record upon which Seeley based her decision. That record, he said, is robust and grounded in climate science that the state did not even try to dispute. “We’re optimistic that when the Supreme Court reviews that record, they will come to the same conclusion and affirm the district court’s order,” he said. That order from Seeley included several important conclusions. First, that the youth plaintiffs have proven standing, meaning they have met the requirements necessary to be in court and to present their case. This is the main issue that the state is arguing in its appeal, claiming the young people have not met their burdens to even be in court in the first place. But Seeley found plaintiffs have established standing, including demonstrating they are being harmed by climate impacts, that this harm is traceable to the state’s conduct of ignoring climate change when approving fossil fuel permits, and that a declaration of constitutional violation can provide some relief to the plaintiffs. On the latter point, Seeley wrote that her judgment “will influence the State's conduct by invalidating statutes prohibiting analysis and remedies based on GHG emissions and climate impacts, alleviating Youth Plaintiffs' injuries and preventing further injury.” Furthermore, her order clarified, contrary to what the state had argued at trial, that regulatory agencies “do have discretion to deny permits for fossil fuel activities that would result in unconstitutional levels of GHG emissions” and unconstitutional degradation of Montana’s environment. Seeley also concluded that the state law prohibiting consideration of climate in environmental reviews under the Montana Environmental Policy Act (MEPA), or what she called the “MEPA Limitation”, was unconstitutional as it violated plaintiffs’ right to a clean and healthful environment. And she found that this right encompasses climate. It will be up to the Montana Supreme Court to determine if Seeley was correct in this finding. “On the constitutional issue the question will be whether Montana's right to a clean and healthy environment provision includes a right to a ‘stable climate,’” Pat Parenteau, a climate law expert and emeritus professor at Vermont Law and Graduate School, explained. If the Supreme Court agrees with Seeley on this question, Parenteau said it “will represent an historic precedent in the sense that for the first time, a US court will have recognized a constitutional right to a stable climate.” Seeley’s ruling has been described as “historic,” and Michael Gerrard, founder and faculty director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School, has called it “the strongest decision on climate change ever issued by any court.” Bellinger said it therefore matters a great deal that the Montana Supreme Court upholds it. “That order that we received in the district court last summer was just an incredibly strong order,” he said. “It’s been getting attention from legal experts all over the world. If we get a Supreme Court affirming it, it would give it more weight going forward, both in Montana and as persuasive authority elsewhere.” The State’s Argument In its appeal, the state is mainly arguing that plaintiffs lack standing and the case should never have gone to trial. The so-called MEPA Limitation, the state contends, cannot be the cause of general and global climate change harms, and invalidating this statutory provision will not substantially provide relief from climate harms. “Declaring unconstitutional one narrow provision of MEPA will not alleviate global climate change,” the state argues in its opening brief on appeal. As Climate in the Courts reported previously, the state does not appear to be challenging, at least not directly, the trial court’s finding that the MEPA Limitation policy was unconstitutional. Bellinger said this is basically a concession. “They’re not really defending the [MEPA Limitation] law as constitutional,” he said. What the state is arguing instead is that essentially nothing about the government’s conduct will meaningfully change because the courts cannot tell the political branches what to do. So even if the MEPA Limitation is unconstitutional, the state argues that agencies “are not required to analyze GHG emissions and climate impacts in MEPA reviews.” They would not be prohibited from doing so, but they are not mandated to do this analysis, and even if they do it, the state says it has no bearing on their permitting decisions. “I think, ultimately, they want to be unencumbered by the Montana constitution, and by the Montana courts, and to be able to do what they want to do and make whatever permitting decisions they want without a check from the courts,” Bellinger said. The interpretation of Seeley’s order may be an issue the Montana Supreme Court will have to resolve - whether the order requires an evaluation of a fossil fuel project’s greenhouse gas emissions under MEPA, or whether it merely eliminates the statutory impediment to doing this evaluation. Plaintiffs’ Position “It’s our position that [the order] does obligate [state defendants] to consider climate impacts,” Bellinger said. “Especially when you consider Judge Seeley found that right now, today, the baseline is there is an unconstitutional level of greenhouse gas emissions, and every additional ton makes those [climate-related] injuries worse.” Bellinger and other lawyers for the youth plaintiffs argue that the state does not have unlimited discretion to continue approving every fossil fuel permit as they have done historically, because agencies’ authority is constrained by the state constitution. If going forward the government continues “to approve every [fossil fuel] permit as they have done historically, that would be unconstitutional, and we will hold them accountable if that is their plan,” Bellinger said. Plaintiffs’ lawyers will be arguing that Seeley’s ruling was correct – that plaintiffs do have standing, that the MEPA Limitation is unconstitutional, and that fulfilling MEPA’s purpose under the state constitution necessarily means taking climate impacts into account in permitting decisions. “I think the purpose of MEPA is to help [state regulators] do that scientific and factual review to evaluate whether or not these projects are needed and weigh the climate harms that would result from approving the projects,” Bellinger said. “I always want to give the government the benefit of the doubt that they’ll do the right thing,” he added. “But if they don’t, we could bring enforcement cases if necessary.” Limitations of the Court Decision Whether or not the Held case outcome leads to substantive change in terms of the government’s decisions on fossil fuel project authorizations remains an open question. “Depending on what the [Montana Supreme Court] decides, there will be the need for follow up litigation to force the state to integrate climate impacts into their MEPA assessments and regulatory decisions,” Parenteau said. The trial court’s judgment, in his opinion, is “mainly a procedural victory with very limited practical consequences in Montana or elsewhere.” Gerrard agreed. “The symbolism of the Held decision is more important than its immediate practical impact,” he said, “since there is little reason to believe that if the State of Montana does consider climate change it will then actually reduce its production of fossil fuels, at least with its current government.”
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As climate accountability lawsuits targeting major oil and gas companies in the US continue mounting, the US Supreme Court on Monday issued an order addressing a pair of pending petitions from Big Oil that aim to stop a case filed by Honolulu, Hawaii from advancing to trial. Rather than deny the petitions, the Court is calling on the US Department of Justice to weigh in on the federal preemption arguments raised in the companies’ petitions.
“The Solicitor General is invited to file a brief in these cases expressing the views of the United States,” the Court’s June 10 order states. The order applies to petitions Sunoco LP et al. v. City and County of Honolulu et al. and Shell PLC et al. v. City and County of Honolulu et al., filed in late February by lawyers for oil company defendants in the climate damages and deception case brought by Honolulu in March 2020. The Honolulu case is proceeding to trial in Hawaii state court following an October 31, 2023 ruling from the Hawaii Supreme Court rejecting the companies’ motions to dismiss, in which they mainly argued that federal law supersedes or preempts state law causes of action when it comes to climate change. Honolulu’s case is grounded in traditional state law tort claims such as nuisance, trespass, and failure to warn, alleging that the fossil fuel industry’s longstanding campaign of climate disinformation and deception contributed to substantial and costly climate consequences to the island community. The case seeks to recover damage costs that could amount to billions of dollars, and it is just one of dozens of climate suits filed by communities across the country targeting the fossil fuel industry. These cases, according to the petitions, “present a serious threat” to that industry, and lawyers representing fossil fuel firms urged the nation’s highest court to “put a stop” to this growing litigation threat by taking up their petitions. “The Hawaii Supreme Court’s decision was incorrect, and it provides this Court with the ideal opportunity to address whether the state-law claims asserted in this nationwide litigation are even allowable before the energy industry is threatened with potentially enormous judgments,” one of the petitions argues. Right-wing allies of the fossil fuel industry – including a coalition of Republican attorneys general and former Trump administration attorney general Bill Barr – have amplified calls for the US Supreme Court’s intervention. Groups with ties to the conservative “architect of the Supreme Court” Leonard Leo have been running media and influence campaigns in recent months demanding that the Court take up Honolulu’s case, as recent reporting by Rolling Stone and the Guardian revealed. If the Court were to take up the case, it would be “a really bad sign” for efforts to hold fossil fuel companies accountable through the courts, said Pat Parenteau, emeritus professor of law and senior fellow for climate policy at Vermont Law and Graduate School’s Environmental Law Center. The Court’s order asking the Solicitor General to weigh in does not mean the justices are granting the oil companies’ petitions for certiorari review, which requires four votes out of nine total, as Parenteau explained. “It doesn't mean there are 4 votes for cert let alone 5 for reversal,” he said. He noted that “[Justice Samuel] Alito has recused because he (or his wife) owns Conoco stocks,” which he said “makes it even harder to get to 4 [votes].” According to Parenteau, it is “fairly standard” for the Court to ask for the Solicitor General’s views “in a case like this with big constitutional issues alleged.” The US Supreme Court previously did just that in this climate accountability litigation, requesting in October 2022 that the Solicitor General file a brief expressing the views of the US government in oil companies’ legal challenge to a procedural ruling on jurisdiction in a case brought by the city and county of Boulder, Colorado. The Solicitor General’s brief ultimately supported the municipal plaintiffs’ position that the lawsuit does not belong in federal court. And in April of last year, in a blow to Big Oil’s bid to derail the litigation, the Supreme Court denied oil companies’ petitions in the Boulder case as well as a handful of other climate cases (including Honolulu’s). With their latest Supreme Court petitions filed earlier this year, oil companies are pulling out all the stops in an attempt to evade facing a trial and potential accountability by erroneously claiming that federal law preempts any state legal action pertaining to climate, advocates for climate accountability say. “The Solicitor General should make clear that federal laws do not preempt the ability of communities to hold companies accountable for their deceptive claims under state law,” Alyssa Johl, vice president of legal and general counsel for the Center for Climate Integrity, said in statement. “Big Oil companies are fighting desperately to avoid trial in lawsuits like Honolulu’s, which would expose the evidence of the fossil fuel industry’s climate lies for the entire world to see,” added Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity. “The people of Honolulu and other communities across the country deserve their day in court.” A Shell spokesperson declined to comment on the US Supreme Court’s order on the petitions pending in the Honolulu case. Sunoco, the other lead oil industry petitioner, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It remains to be seen whether the Supreme Court will eventually accept or deny these petitions. “I think it means the Supreme Court is interested in the case, so it’s more likely that they’ll take it than the hundreds of run-of-the-mill cases that they routinely deny,” Michael Gerrard, founder and faculty director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School, told Climate in the Courts. “But it doesn’t mean there is a more than 50-50 chance that they will take it.” What it does mean, for now, is likely further delay of proceedings including pre-trial preparations in Honolulu’s case, Parenteau explained. “It does mean that everything will be kicked to the Fall and that could slow the Hawaii cases moving towards trial.” Latest youth climate lawsuit targets the Alaska LNG Project, which is expected to generate billions of tons of climate pollutionEight young Alaskans have sued the state of Alaska and a state-created corporation in an attempt to prevent a massive new fossil gas project from proceeding. The lawsuit, Sagoonick v. State of Alaska II, targets the Alaska LNG Project and challenges a state law mandating the project be developed and advanced. This law, the case alleges, violates youth plaintiffs’ due process and public trust rights under the state constitution, as the project’s expected climate pollution would further deteriorate Alaska’s environment and significantly and disproportionately harm the state’s youngest citizens.
“Alaska’s youth are on the frontlines of the climate crisis, and their futures depend on a swift transition away from fossil fuels,” Andrew Welle, senior staff attorney for the nonprofit law firm Our Children’s Trust, said in a statement. “The Alaska LNG Project is the equivalent of pouring gasoline on a five-alarm fire at their homes.” The case was filed May 22 in the state’s Superior Court for the Third Judicial District in Anchorage. Defendants include the state of Alaska, the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation (AGDC), and the company’s president Frank Richards. AGDC, established under Alaskan law in 2010, is a public corporation of the state whose purpose is to facilitate development of fossil gas from Alaska’s North Slope. In 2014 the state legislature passed a law expanding AGDC’s mandate to include development of a liquefied ‘natural’ gas (LNG) project on behalf of the state. These statutory provisions that require the development of a major new LNG project and associated infrastructure are at odds with the scientifically-informed imperative that society must transition swiftly away from all fossil fuels in order to mitigate the worsening climate crisis, the new lawsuit asserts. “At a time when the scientific consensus requires that climate pollution must be rapidly reduced to avert further and irreversible climate harms to Alaska’s youth, [the statutory provisions] unconstitutionally direct AGDC to develop and advance the Alaska LNG Project,” the complaint contends, “which would unleash vast quantities of fossil gas from Alaska’s North Slope and substantially increase Alaska’s emissions of climate pollution.” The lawsuit seeks a court declaration that the statute mandating the Alaska LNG project is unconstitutional. Specifically, plaintiffs allege violations of their due process and public trust rights and the right to a climate system that sustains human life, liberty, and dignity. Under Alaska’s constitutional public trust provisions (in Article VIII), natural resources and the environment broadly are part of the public commons or trust, and the state is obligated as trustee to preserve them for present and future generations. The complaint argues that a life-sustaining climate system is a “critical component” of plaintiffs’ public trust rights, and is fundamental to other basic constitutional rights such as due process and life, liberty, and property. “[Defendants] are seeking to drastically expand Alaska’s annual emissions of fossil fuel climate pollution, but Alaska’s constitution doesn’t allow the state to do that, because it provides really strong protections for young people’s access to the natural resources that their lives depend on,” Welle said. Project could triple Alaska’s GHG emissions for decades Alaska is one of the largest oil and gas producing states in the US, ranking fifth in crude oil production and twelfth in fossil gas production. The Alaska LNG project would significantly increase gas production from the North Slope, which contains 35 trillion cubic feet of proven gas reserves and potentially an additional 200 trillion cubic feet of reserves, according to AGDC. Advancements in drilling technology could open up hundreds of trillions of cubic feet more fossil gas resources for extraction from the area. The Alaska LNG project consists of a gas treatment plant to treat raw extracted gas, a main gas pipeline to transport the gas more than 800 miles across the state, and an LNG plant and marine terminal to liquefy the gas for export, with much of it intended to be shipped to Asia. The project is expected to transport more than 3.5 billion cubic feet of fossil gas per day for combustion. It is fully permitted and ready for construction and operation; if allowed to go forward, it is expected to operate for at least 30 years, unleashing substantial levels of climate pollution – at least 2.3 billion metric tons. That would roughly triple Alaska’s greenhouse gas emissions for decades to come, the lawsuit argues. “On the frontlines of the frontlines” Alaska is already experiencing severe climate impacts. The state is warming at least twice as fast as the global average since the mid-20th century, and the Arctic region is heating at a rate of nearly four times the global average since 1979. From rapidly declining snowpack and glacier loss to melting permafrost (leading to mineral contamination of rivers, among other impacts) and profound transformations of sensitive ecosystems, the climate crisis driven primarily by fossil fuel combustion is causing a myriad of adverse impacts that threaten the health, wellbeing, cultural traditions and identities of the youth plaintiffs, the case argues. These young Alaskans, between the ages of 8 and 22, all have a deep connection to the land and natural environment that is increasingly imperiled by rising levels of climate pollution. “I joined this case because melting permafrost and erosion are harming my Yup’ik culture by sinking our land and hurting the subsistence we gather,” plaintiff Jamie T. said in a statement. “Many of the youth we represent in the case are from Alaska Native communities who depend directly on the natural resources surrounding their communities, the fish and the wildlife, to sustain their lives and their cultures. So they’re really on the frontlines of the frontlines of the climate crisis,” Welle said. Building on previous Alaska youth climate case In addition to declaratory relief, the youth plaintiffs are asking for a court order prohibiting the state from moving forward with the Alaska LNG project. A spokesperson for AGDC did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In August last year several environmental groups launched a court challenge to the US Department of Energy’s approvals of the project’s gas exports, arguing the federal government’s authorizations did not adequately and fully assess the climate and environmental impacts of this massive fossil fuel extraction and export project. “The Biden administration made a mockery of the climate emergency when it approved the Alaska LNG carbon bomb and this lawsuit aims to stop it from being built,” Jason Rylander, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, said on the filing of that case by CBD and the Sierra Club with support from Earthjustice. The new youth-led lawsuit challenging the project is the latest youth constitutional climate case to be brought against governments in the US, and it follows a previous youth constitutional climate challenge to the Alaskan government that did not ultimately succeed. That case (Sagoonick v. State of Alaska I) featured several of the same plaintiffs and had a broader scope, contending that state policies and practices promoting fossil fuels were unconstitutional. The Alaska Supreme Court ended the case in 2022 with a 3-2 decision affirming the case should be dismissed. Welle said the new legal challenge builds upon the learned experience from that previous case. “I would characterize this case as following the guidance that was provided by the previous decision from the Alaska Supreme Court. The court specifically said that Alaska’s constitution does not leave youth without recourse and that they can challenge specific projects.” “In the midst of the climate emergency in Alaska, the state is pursuing a project that moves the state exactly in the opposite direction of what it needs to be doing to protect the lives and the health and the safety of these youth,” he added. “The situation is just getting worse for these young people in Alaska. With a case like this aimed at stopping a massive expansion of Alaska’s fossil fuel emissions, it’s is going to make a big difference for them.” Countries must step up climate action and take all necessary measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in line with the best available science in order to help protect and preserve the marine environment, an international tribunal has determined.
The highly anticipated advisory opinion from the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), delivered on May 21 in Hamburg, Germany, marks the first time that an international court has weighed in on the question of states’ responsibilities to combat climate change as a matter of ocean protection. It is the first of three advisory opinions to be issued from international tribunals that are expected to clarify states’ legal obligations to address climate change under international law, which observers say will help inform global climate negotiations under the UNFCCC regime and can provide persuasive authority in climate accountability court proceedings. Developed in response to a request from a coalition of nine small island states, the advisory opinion from ITLOS affirms that climate action is a legal duty; under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) – a legally binding ocean treaty established in 1982 – countries have specific obligations to mitigate ocean pollution and adverse effects on the marine environment from anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Such emissions, including from sources on land or through the atmosphere or at sea, constitute pollution of the marine environment, the tribunal found. This determination gives rise to the obligations to reduce marine pollution stemming from climate change, such as ocean acidification, and for states to work both individually and cooperatively to implement their obligations. Legal experts responded to the advisory opinion highlighting its significance and historic nature. Lea Main-Klingst, a lawyer with UK-based environmental law charity ClientEarth, said that the small island states spearheading the request for the opinion “have succeeded in a world first.” The tribunal’s decision, she said, “has made it clear that states worldwide must reduce their emissions to protect our ocean.” “The ITLOS advisory opinion marks a significant step forward in international environmental law and the protection of our oceans,” Louise Fournier, legal counsel for climate justice and liability at Greenpeace International, said in a statement. “It sets a clear legal precedent for addressing climate change through existing international frameworks and reinforces States’ responsibilities to act on climate change.” Advisory opinions are not themselves legally binding, but they are considered highly influential and can provide states and courts with important guidance, experts say. The opinion in this case clarifies obligations under the UNCLOS treaty – considered the “Constitution of the Ocean” – which is binding for the 169 countries that have ratified it (the United States has not ratified it, making it not formally party to the Convention). Countries that fail to meet their obligations to effectively address climate change under the Law of the Sea Convention, the tribunal suggests, could be held liable. These obligations, detailed in the tribunal’s unanimous opinion, include:
Additionally, the tribunal found that states’ mere participation in the UN climate negotiations and adoption of the Paris Climate Agreement may not suffice to satisfy these obligations, implying additional actions are needed. That includes regulating business activities that significantly contribute to GHG emissions, suggesting that the tribunal’s decision may have far-reaching implications for corporate climate polluters and their enablers. “Because business must follow where governments lead, companies and financial institutions are going to feel a knock-on effect from this development, too – no matter where they operate,” Main-Klingst said. High-ranking officials from the small island states leading this historic international legal initiative said the advisory opinion could be instrumental to efforts to hold big climate polluters accountable. “This is a historic moment for small island developing nations in their quest for climate justice; an important step in holding major polluters accountable, for the sake of all humankind,” Tuvalu High Commissioner to Fiji H.E. Eselealofa Apinelu said in a press release. “Small Island States are fighting for their survival. Some will become uninhabitable in the near future because of the failure to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. We demand that the major polluters respect international law, and stop the catastrophic harm against us before it’s too late,” Gaston Browne, prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, said. Tuvalu and Antigua and Barbuda were co-leads on this ITLOS advisory opinion initiative, submitted in December 2022 by the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law (COSIS), a group formed in 2021 that includes Tuvalu, Antigua and Barbuda, Vanuatu, Palau, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Kitts and St Nevis, Saint Lucia, Niue, and the Bahamas. These and other low-lying small island states are especially vulnerable to climate impacts like sea level rise, and their very existence in many ways is deeply intertwined with the sea. The advisory opinion comes at a time when atmospheric GHG concentrations have reached record levels, ocean temperatures have been off the charts, and another massive coral reef bleaching event is devastating marine ecosystems. Oceans are the world’s largest carbon sink, absorbing much of the thermal energy from heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions, resulting in deleterious marine impacts. The ITLOS advisory opinion is the first of three highly-anticipated advisory opinions on climate change from international tribunals; advisory opinions from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) are forthcoming. “The momentum from today is only set to grow,” said Main-Klingst, “as 2024 is a year of serious legal reckoning on climate change in international courts.” Lawyer who led the federal case against Big Tobacco tells Congress a Justice Department probe against the petroleum industry is appropriateAs climate change deception lawsuits filed by US states and municipalities against oil and gas majors continue to wind their way through the courts, pressure is building on the federal government to initiate legal action against the fossil fuel industry. This comes as a congressional investigation has unveiled new evidence of what lawmakers say is an ongoing campaign of corporate fraud to delay effective climate action.
“Our investigation uncovered compelling evidence of aggressive industry deceit which continued long after Big Oil gave up on its outright climate denialism,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland and Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, said during a Senate Budget Committee hearing on Wednesday, May 1. “Fossil fuel companies publicly claim to be partners — if not leaders — in fashioning climate solutions, but our investigation exposed that as a fraud. Big Oil is not addressing the climate crisis, but profiting from it, and using a lot of its mammoth resources on continuing campaigns to insulate its carbon-based business model.” Raskin and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) used the hearing to highlight findings based on subpoenaed industry documents obtained during a three-year investigation launched by House Democrats examining Big Oil’s sordid strategies to pollute the public discourse and impede the energy transition. From sponsoring academic research supporting its preferred purported climate solutions to engaging in extensive greenwashing through ad and PR blitzes, the industry continues to mislead the public on climate and is lying about its commitment to addressing it, internal documents indicate. “Just as it was the case with the tobacco industry, the petroleum companies’ internal documents tell the story,” Sharon Eubanks, an attorney who led the US Justice Department’s successful civil lawsuit against Big Tobacco, said during the hearing. She testified about the striking similarities between Big Tobacco and Big Oil in their deception campaigns and emphasized that oil companies should be held legally liable just as cigarette companies ultimately were. “At the core of the liability issues for the fossil fuel industry is that no company has acknowledged, just as the tobacco companies refused to acknowledge, that the product is the problem,” Eubanks said. She called for further federal investigation of fossil fuel companies, suggesting the Justice Department – the world’s largest law office – should open a probe and consider prosecuting Big Oil like it did with Big Tobacco. “The similarities between the conduct of the tobacco industry and the petroleum industry form a solid and appropriate basis for investigating the petroleum industry. Furthermore, we should not waste more time wringing our hands,” she said. “There is certainly an adequate legal foundation for litigation against this industry.” The federal tobacco litigation was a civil racketeering case, based on a statute called RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) that has been used to prosecute mob bosses and organized crime. Several climate liability cases currently pending against Big Oil, including suits brought by Puerto Rican municipalities and the city of Hoboken, New Jersey, feature racketeering claims. Eubanks pointed to RICO law as well as conspiracy claims and consumer protection statutes when asked by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders about legal grounds for holding oil companies accountable. “If you were Attorney General of the United States, would you proceed in that direction?” Sanders then asked. “I would yes, no question,” Eubanks responded. Last July amidst record-breaking extreme weather, during what has been called the “summer from hell,” Sanders, Whitehouse, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez discussed the pressing need to hold corporate carbon polluters accountable for their deceit and obstruction of climate policies. “I would love to see the Department of Justice bring exactly the kind of litigation that it won against the tobacco industry for lying about the dangers associated with its product,” Whitehouse said. Sanders agreed and said they should pay Attorney General Merrick Garland a visit to request that his Justice Department take action. Yet so far, the Department has been silent on the matter. When asked by Climate in the Courts if the Department of Justice will consider opening an investigation into the petroleum industry’s deception, as Eubanks recommended in her testimony, a DOJ spokesperson declined to comment. But youth climate activists are amplifying calls for the Biden administration to get off the sidelines. “Sunrise is demanding President Biden deliver for young people and the planet by declaring a Climate Emergency and suing Big Oil for their lies and harm they’ve caused our communities,” the Sunrise Movement wrote in a new fundraising email. Sunrise campaigners say Biden should stand up to the industry “the same way the federal government did to Big Tobacco.” Honolulu Responds to Oil Companies’ US Supreme Court Petition State lawsuits against the tobacco industry seeking to recover tobacco-related public health costs preceded the federal Big Tobacco litigation and resulted in the landmark $206 billion Master Settlement Agreement in 1998. Similarly, states and local governments are currently suing fossil fuel companies aiming to recover climate-related costs stemming from a decades-long campaign of deception and to hold the industry liable for alleged consumer fraud. A case brought by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts against ExxonMobil alleging violations of the state’s consumer protection statute is currently in pre-trial discovery and nearing trial. The other case that is furthest along procedurally is one brought by the city and county of Honolulu, Hawaii against nearly a dozen major oil and gas companies. That case is on the verge of entering discovery in earnest, having surmounted defendants’ motions to dismiss. Last fall the Hawaii Supreme Court upheld the decision against the companies denying their motions to dismiss, but the defendants are now mounting a US Supreme Court challenge to the ruling. In their petition to the US Supreme Court, oil company lawyers urged the Court to “put a stop” to climate deception cases that they claim are an attempt to regulate interstate greenhouse gas emissions. Attorneys for Honolulu pushed back against this interpretation of their case in their response to the petition filed on May 1. “As the Hawai‘i Supreme Court explained, petitioners mischaracterize the complaint as seeking to regulate pollution,” the response argues. Rather, Honolulu says, the case is squarely about the companies’ deceptive practices. As stated in the response’s introduction: “This case seeks to hold petitioners liable under Hawai‘i tort law for deliberately concealing and misrepresenting the climate change impacts of their fossil fuel products.” It is now up to the US Supreme Court to decide whether to take up the oil companies’ petition. A three-judge panel of a federal appeals court has shut down a rights-based climate lawsuit brought by 21 young people against the US federal government before the case could get to trial. With the court’s order this time, it appears the landmark case could be permanently ended.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday ordered the Juliana v. United States youth civil rights lawsuit be dismissed once and for all without exceptions. In its ruling, the court granted a petition from the US Department of Justice, representing the government defendants, to supersede the trial court’s authority through an extraordinarily rare legal maneuver called a writ of mandamus. The government’s petition, filed in February, sought to reverse a decision from US District Judge Ann Aiken last year that greenlighted a revised and narrower version of the case for trial. Originally filed in 2015, the Juliana case challenged the US government’s systemic policies and actions that perpetuate fossil fuels and exacerbate the climate crisis. Arguing that the government knowingly endangers the nation’s children through its actions that contribute to climate change, the 21 youth plaintiffs asserted violations of their fundamental rights under the US Constitution and contended that a stable climate system is a precondition for guaranteeing those rights. Judge Aiken concurred when she wrote in a 2016 opinion denying the government’s first attempt to toss the case: “Exercising my ‘reasoned judgment,’ I have no doubt that the right to a climate system capable of sustaining human life is fundamental to a free and ordered society.” The case survived multiple bids from the Department of Justice to thwart it and was scheduled to go to trial in October 2018, but the DOJ’s emergency petitions and a procedural intervention by the US Supreme Court derailed the trial schedule and led to the Ninth Circuit Court ultimately ordering (on a pre-trial appeal) that the case be dismissed; that 2-1 decision from a divided panel came out in January 2020. It could have been the end of the road for the Juliana plaintiffs, but they refused to give up and went back to Judge Aiken asking permission to amend their complaint. She granted their request in June 2023, reviving the case and setting it back on track for trial. Then the Department of Justice under the Biden administration resumed its relentless opposition and continued to try to block the case from reaching trial, almost a decade after it was first filed. The ruling from the Ninth Circuit panel on Wednesday seems to effectively quash the case for good, as it orders Judge Aiken to dismiss the suit “forthwith” and “without leave to amend”, meaning without allowing any revisions or exceptions. Youth plaintiffs and their attorneys responded to the ruling by expressing deep concern and disappointment. “Today’s decision by a panel of three Trump-appointed judges is wrong on the law and has a chilling effect,” said Julia Olson, founder and chief legal counsel at Our Children’s Trust, a nonprofit law firm representing young people in rights-based climate cases against governments. “A declaration of our constitutional rights by the courts is one of the few things that has moved our nation to greater justice and equality throughout history. The court’s opinion that declaring dangerous and discriminatory government systems unconstitutional doesn’t matter, is simply false. Adults continue to discriminate against young people in profoundly harmful ways, and this ruling greenlights these harms.” “I have been pleading for my government to hear our case since I was ten years old, and I am now nearly 19. A functioning democracy would not make a child beg for their rights to be protected in the courts, just to be ignored nearly a decade later. I am fed up with the continuous attempts to squash this case and silence our voices,” said plaintiff Avery McRae. According to the Our Children’s Trust webpage for the case, the youth plaintiffs are not giving up and are “now considering their options to move forward.” “This is a tragic and unjust ruling, but it is not over,” Olson said. “President Biden can still make this right by coming to the settlement table. And the full Ninth Circuit can correct this mistake. We will never give up fighting for the constitutional rights of our children and a livable planet for future generations.” 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.” 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.” |
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