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"The growing number of lawsuits against fossil fuel corporations underlines how their historic and continued role in driving and profiting from climate change is catching up to them."
An increasing number of climate lawsuits filed against fossil fuel companies in the last decade could put a dent in the business model of large fossil fuel companies, according to a report released Thursday.
The 16-page report—titled Big Oil in Court and co-created by Oil Change International and Zero Carbon Analytics—documents dozens of cases worldwide, mostly since 2015, when the Paris agreement was signed. Many of the cases center on climate damages, misleading advertising about fossil fuels, or failure to reduce emissions in line with legal agreements. Over half of the cases have been filed in the United States, with a majority of others in Western Europe.
"The growing number of lawsuits against fossil fuel corporations underlines how their historic and continued role in driving and profiting from climate change is catching up to them," David Tong, an industry campaign manager at Oil Change International, an advocacy group, said in a statement.
"The wave of lawsuits against Big Oil could lead to serious impacts on their bottom line, a disincentive for investment in fossil fuel infrastructure, a reduction in corporate value, and a challenge to their social license to continue harming communities around the world," Tong added.
Last year saw 14 climate cases targeted at Big Oil filed worldwide, a record. A database cited in the report that dates to 2005 records 86 total cases, the vast majority having been file since 2015. Forty of the cases are still pending.
The most common type of climate-focused case has been for damages, with 30 filed just since 2017—prior to that year, only three had been filed. Dozens of U.S. states and cities have filed such cases, though none has yet reached a trial. The damages case in the U.S. that's the furthest along, City and County of Honolulu v. Sunoco et al., has faced extraordinary legal and political pushback from the industry, which is seeking to have it dismissed.
One of the most prominent damages cases outside the U.S. features Saúl Luciano Lliuya, a Peruvian farmer who sued energy giant RWE in German court in 2015 for having a partial role in the melting of a glacier in the Andes. He seeks reimbursement for the flood protection infrastructure that he and 50,000 other residents had to erect. Lawyers and judges traveled from Germany to Peru in 2022 to assess Luciano Lliuya's claims. The case is ongoing.
In the statement accompanying Thursday's report, Lliuya said:
Taking on carbon majors in court can be daunting. But the fear of losing your home and everything you’ve worked for due to the reckless actions of fossil fuel companies is even greater. For those of us directly impacted by the climate crisis, the courts offer a glimmer of hope. People like me are in court because our livelihoods are at serious risk and we are asking judges to hold the fossil fuel companies responsible.
The second most common type of climate case against Big Oil has focused on misleading advertising. Of the nine cases of this type that have reached a conclusion, Big Oil won only one case; in each of the others, the companies retracted their claims or were ruled against. The United Kingdom's Advertising Standard Authority found Shell's low-carbon claims to be misleading in separate cases in 2020 and 2023, for example.
There have also been a number of cases seeking to force fossil fuel companies to adhere to legally mandated climate targets. The most prominent outcome from these cases was a landmark ruling against Shell by a Dutch court in 2021, which found that the company must cut emissions by 45% by 2030; the seminal ruling, which was based on emissions limits set in the Paris agreement, pertains to emissions that come Shell's fossil fuel products, and not just the company's direct business activities.
The report's analysis doesn't include climate lawsuits targeted at governments or at companies involved in other areas of the fossil fuel supply chain.
In response to the report, Michael Gerrard, the faculty director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, toldThe Guardian that there have been a "formidable number of cases" but "none of them have broken through" except those dealing with advertising.
"As the disastrous impacts of increased fossil fuel development become more and more obvious here and around the globe," said one campaigner, "the notion of expanded LNG exports should be dismissed out of hand."
Despite the strong links between liquefied natural gas and harms to public health and the planet, the U.S. Department of Energy has approved the export of the methane-heavy gas by the fossil fuel company New Fortress Energy—leading one group to warn Tuesday that such approvals will ultimately negate any renewable energy progress the U.S. makes.
New Fortress Energy said the Biden administration had authorized it to export LNG, which is fracked gas that is liquefied in order be transported, from its offshore plant near Altamira, Mexico to non-free trade agreement companies, allowing it to send nearly 1.4 million tonnes per year for five years.
The announcement comes seven months after the Biden administration announced it was pausing LNG exports to non-FTA countries, following a push from frontline communities. The move put at least 14 pending projects on hold. The U.S. had previously been the world's largest exporter of LNG.
In July, a federal judge appointed by former Republican President Donald Trump—now the GOP's presidential nominee—blocked President Joe Biden's pause on the approvals of exports.
Allie Rosenbluth, U.S. program manager at Oil Change International (OCI), said the New Fortress Energy approval breaks the administration's "own commitment to pause LNG export authorizations—a commitment made out of recognition that its current guidance doesn't adequately consider the risks LNG exports pose to the climate, environment, and public health, and safety."
"The bottom line is that methane gas production and consumption must decline immediately to meet climate goals."
"The Department of Energy's decision to approve the New Fortress LNG Terminal is deeply concerning," said Rosenbluth. "The bottom line is that methane gas production and consumption must decline immediately to meet climate goals. No matter how much the United States invests in renewable energy, any additional export infrastructure will undermine domestic and international efforts to prevent climate catastrophe."
LNG is made predominantly of methane, which has 80 times the planet-heating potential of carbon dioxide over its first two decades in the atmosphere.
Advocates have estimated that the 14 LNG export projects that were temporarily paused by Biden could emit the same amount of greenhouse gases as 532 coal plants, contributing to premature deaths and health issues particularly for communities near LNG export terminals.
OCI denounced the approval of New Fortress' project as "reckless."
The LNG exports "will exacerbate the climate crisis, harm communities, create bigger barriers to a clean energy future, and become stranded assets that burden communities with toxic pollution, costly clean-ups, revenue shortfalls, and job losses," said Rosenbluth.
Mitch Jones, managing director of policy and litigation for Food & Water Watch, said it was "ridiculous" that the Biden administration would authorize the exports despite its ongoing review of how LNG impacts the public interest.
"The department is under no obligation to approve these ill-advised proposals, now or ever," said Jones. "As the disastrous impacts of increased fossil fuel development become more and more obvious here and around the globe, the notion of expanded LNG exports should be dismissed out of hand."
"The fossil fuel industry delays climate action, distracts from real solutions that would end the fossil fuel era, and does everything in its power to squeeze the last drops of profit from a dying industry, at the expense of all of us."
Among the world's wealthiest countries, the U.S. leads the way in spending public money on so-called climate "solutions" that have been proven to "consistently fail, overspend, or underperform," according to an analysis released Thursday by the research and advocacy group Oil Change International.
The group's report, titled Funding Failure, focuses on international spending on carbon capture and fossil-based hydrogen subsidies, which continues despite ample data showing that the technological fixes have "failed to make a dent in carbon emissions" after 50 years of research and development.
The report details how five countries account for 95% of all carbon capture spending, with the U.S. investing the most taxpayer money in the technology, at $12 billion in subsidies over the last 40 years.
Norway comes in second with $6 billion going to carbon capture and storage, while Canada has spent $3.8 billion, the European Union has spent $3.6 billion, and the Netherlands has poured $2.6 billion into the technology, with which carbon dioxide emissions are compressed and utilized or stored underground.
"It is nothing short of a travesty that funds meant to combat climate change are instead bolstering the very industries driving it."
Harjeet Singh, global engagement director for the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, toldThe Guardian that the subsidies amount to a "colossal waste of money."
"It is nothing short of a travesty that funds meant to combat climate change are instead bolstering the very industries driving it," said Singh.
While proponents claim carbon capture and storage reduces planet-heating carbon emissions, OCI notes, it was originally developed in the 1970s "to enhance oil production, and this remains its primary use," with the technology "barely" reducing emissions.
High-profile carbon capture failures in the U.S. include the Petra Nova project in Houston, Texas, which cost nearly $200 million in taxpayer funds and whose captured emissions were later used for crude oil production, and the FutureGen project, "which swallowed $200 million and never materialized."
"Investing in carbon capture delays the transition to renewable energy," reads OCI's report. "Instead of wasting time and money on technologies that do not work, governments must commit to justly and urgently phasing out fossil fuels before it's too late."
Despite the lack of data supporting the use of carbon capture, the group said, countries including the U.S. are "preparing to waste hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on these ineffective technologies, further benefiting the fossil fuel industry."
OCI highlighted how the U.S. and Canada, while ostensibly fighting the climate crisis, have spent a combined $4 billion in public money to explicitly "pay oil companies to produce more oil," with the subsidies going to carbon capture for "enhanced oil recovery."
The report also found that in addition to the $12 billion in taxpayer funds the U.S. has spent on carbon capture and fossil hydrogen—a leak-prone gas produced through energy-intensive processes that cause their own emissions—the government has spent an estimated $1.3 billion on the 45Q tax credit, which allows companies to write off tax for every ton of carbon dioxide they store underground.
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) increased the amount given to companies in 45Q tax credits from $35 to $60 per ton, meaning that the subsidy could grow to over $100 billion in the next 10 years.
OCI's Policy Tracker shows that overall public spending on carbon capture and hydrogen could grow by between $115 billion and $240 billion in the coming decades.
"We need real climate action, not fossil fuel bailouts!" said OCI in a post on social media.
The group's report also highlights that fossil fuel giants such as ExxonMobil have shifted from carbon capture skeptics to outspoken proponents of the technology—with the company bragging to investors that carbon capture and hydrogen would help its Low Carbon Business Unit make "hundreds of billions of dollars" and grow to be "larger than ExxonMobil's base business."
Exxon didn't launch its carbon capture efforts until 2018, having spent several years and hundreds of millions of dollars on another "climate solution" that ultimately failed: the use of algae to make biofuels.
Since then, Exxon has "pushed for direct government funding for carbon capture, particularly at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)," successfully lobbying for $12 billion allocated in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill in 2021 for "carbon management research, development, and demonstration."
Exxon also lobbied for the increased rate of the 45Q tax credit in the IRA and "played a 'central role' in drafting a 2019 DOE-sponsored report on carbon capture that determined Congress would need to create an incentive of around $90 to $110 per ton to support carbon capture deployment," according to OCI.
The Guardian on Thursday reported that Exxon still "chases billions in U.S. subsidies for a 'climate solution' that helps drill more oil," describing how the oil giant hosted an event at the Democratic National Convention earlier this month where senior climate strategy and technology director Vijay Swarup praised the IRA for helping Exxon pursue carbon capture and said: "We need new technology and we need policy to support that technology. We need governments working with private industry."
Exxon's enthusiasm for carbon capture, said OCI, is an example of how "the fossil fuel industry delays climate action, distracts from real solutions that would end the fossil fuel era, and does everything in its power to squeeze the last drops of profit from a dying industry, at the expense of all of us."