Climate Change and Cigarette Litigation:
How Consumer Protection Laws Will Eliminate Fossil Fuel Emissions
&
Litigating for Children's Right to a Stable and Healthy Climate

In 2016, I had said: What will create the change needed?
The oil industry is going to be like the tobacco industry. The consumers are going to claim they were misled about the dangers of burning fossil fuels and will file lawsuits against the oil companies. You will not be able to buy oil or get insurance at a reasonable price (similar to what happened to cigarette smokers, or oil could be banned altogether.)

In 2022, WGUR Massachusetts reported, "State attorneys general from around the nation, including here in Massachusetts, are suing fossil fuel companies over climate change. Late last month, the state s highest court rejected ExxonMobil's bid to dismiss a lawsuit by Attorney General Maura Healey. And yes, you've seen this movie before. The states took Big Tobacco to court, and they won. The 1998 Master Settlement Agreement imposed tight restrictions on how tobacco companies can promote cigarettes, and requires tobacco makers to pay billions of dollars in damages to the states annually, for as long as they do business in the U.S."

Commonwealth v. Exxon Mobil Corp.
Massachusetts High Court Affirmed Denial of Motion to Dismiss Attorney General's Climate Change-Related Enforcement Action Against Exxon. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court affirmed a trial court's denial of Exxon Mobil Corporation's (Exxon's) special motion to dismiss the Massachusetts Attorney General's enforcement action alleging that Exxon's communications with investors and consumers related to climate change constituted unfair and deceptive practices. Exxon filed the special motion under Massachusetts' anti-SLAPP (Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation) law, which protects parties exercising their right of petition. The Supreme Judicial Court held that the anti-SLAPP law did not apply to government enforcement actions brought by the Attorney General. The court found that this interpretation was grounded in the statutory language, the rules of construction applicable to enforcement of statutes against the Commonwealth, and the legislative history and purpose of the anti-SLAPP law.

In 2023, the BBC reported, "The findings add to ongoing pressure on the company over what it knew about climate change. Campaigners allege it spread misinformation in order to protect its business interests in fossil fuels and are suing the company in a number of US courts. ExxonMobil's private research predicted how burning fossil fuels would warm the planet but the company publicly denied the link."

The report published in Science will be used as evidence against ExxonMobil:
Assessing ExxonMobil s global warming projections

However, ExxonMobil continues to deny the facts. "This issue has come up several times in recent years and, in each case, our answer is the same: those who talk about how "Exxon Knew" are wrong in their conclusions," the company told BBC News.

"It really underscores the stark hypocrisy of ExxonMobil leadership, who knew that their own scientists were doing this very high quality modelling work and had access to that privileged information while telling the rest of us that climate models were bunk," Naomi Oreskes, professor of the history of science at Harvard University, told BBC News.

"Our analysis allows us for the first time to actually put a number on what Exxon knew, which is that the burning of their fossil fuel products was going to heat the planet by about 0.2C of warming every decade," says co-author Geoffrey Supran, associate professor of environmental science and policy at the University of Miami.

"Their excellent climate modelling was at least comparable in performance to one of the most influential and well-regarded climate scientists of modern history," Prof Supran said, comparing ExxonMobil's work to Nasa's James Hansen who sounded the alarm on climate in 1988.

Prof Oreskes said the findings show that ExxonMobil "knowingly misled" the public and governments. "They had all this information at their disposal but they said very, very different things in public," she explained.

The research, published in the academic journal Science, also suggests that ExxonMobil had reasonable estimates for how emissions would need to be reduced in order to avoid the worst effects of climate change in a world warmed by 2C or more.

Their scientists also correctly rejected the theory that an ice age was coming at a time when other researchers were still debating the prospect.

The findings add to ongoing pressure on the company over what it knew about climate change. Campaigners allege it spread misinformation in order to protect its business interests in fossil fuels and are suing the company in a number of US courts.

California v. Exxon, Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and BP
In September of 2023, the State of California filed the lawsuit for:

• DECADES OF DECEPTION
  • Oil and gas executives have known for decades about the dangers of the fossil fuels they produce.
  • Industry-funded reports directly linked fossil fuel consumption to rising global temperatures and damage to our air, land, and water.
  • Oil companies intentionally suppressed that information from the public and policymakers to protect their profits, and spent billions of dollars to spread disinformation on climate change and delay our transition away from fossil fuels.
  • Oil companies used this information for their own profits, developing new technology to explore the Arctic for oil production because they knew Arctic sea ice was melting.
  • The deception continues today: Oil companies promote fossil fuel products as “clean” or “green” or “low-emissions” that still produce carbon pollution, and they tout their renewable fuel products that actually make up a fraction of a percent of their earnings.
• DAMAGING OUR STATE
  • Big Oil's lies and cover ups have caused ongoing climate disasters that have imposed billions of dollars of costs on Californians. We should not have to foot the bill alone while oil companies profit.
  • The suit demands that oil companies pay their fair share for:
    Recovery efforts from climate change-induced superstorms and wildfires;
    Protecting people from the health impacts of extreme heat;
    Managing dwindling water supplies in extreme drought;
    Fortifying infrastructure and homes against sea level rise and coastal and inland flooding.

What we're asking the court to do:

• Order the oil companies to pay for the costs of their impacts to the environment, human health, and Californians' livelihoods, and to help protect the state against the harms that climate change will cause in years to come;
• Prohibit oil companies from engaging in further pollution and destruction of California communities and natural resources;
• Levy financial penalties on Big Oil for lying to the public, and order the industry to immediately stop its ongoing efforts to deceive or misinform about their catastrophic impacts;
• Award punitive damages to the state to punish these companies for their misconduct.

Litigating for Children's Right to a Stable and Healthy Climate

In November 2013, hundreds of Dutch citizens, along with the Dutch Urgenda Foundation, sued their government to hold the state liable for failing to take measures to prevent dangerous climate change. The plaintiffs argued that under Dutch tort law, the State could be held liable for negligence due to its failure to adequately reduce greenhouse (GHG) emissions in line with its previous international commitments to reduce emissions by 25-40% by 2020. They also argued that the government’s failure to achieve its GHG emission reduction commitments violated their fundamental rights to life, privacy and health under the European Code of Human Rights. The plaintiffs sought a declaration that the Netherlands was acting unlawfully towards the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs also sought injunctions ordering the Netherlands to limit its GHG emissions to a level of 40%, or at least 25% below 1990 levels before 2020 and to present to Parliament within 6 months a program of measures with corresponding budgets that would ensure such GHG emissions reductions. In June 2015, the Hague District Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, imposing a 25% reduction of GHG emissions by 2020. The District Court’s decision was upheld by both the Court of Appeals in October 2018 and the Netherlands Supreme Court in December 2019.

In August 2023, the Journal Nature reported:

Advocates for action on climate change won a major court victory in the United States this week. A district court judge ruled in Held v. Montana that Montana's Environmental Policy Act, which prohibits the state from considering the climate impact of proposed energy projects, violates the "right to a clean and healthful environment" promised by the state's constitution. Montana's attorney-general has vowed to appeal. The case was brought in 2020 on behalf of a group of 16 young people, now between 5 and 22 years old, and was litigated by Julia Olson at the non-profit law firm Our Children's Trust. Olson has been involved with dozens of climate cases since around 2010.