Climate Accountability Lawsuits

Cases Underway to Make Climate Polluters Pay
A growing trend in the U.S., climate liability lawsuits are a powerful tool that communities can use to hold polluters accountable and make them pay their fair share of the staggering costs to adapt to the worsening climate crisis.
Dozens of states and municipalities have filed lawsuits that seek to hold major oil and gas corporations accountable for deceiving the public about their central role in the climate crisis.

About the Cases

Across the United States, eight states, dozens of municipalities, two tribal governments, and the District of Columbia are suing major oil and gas corporations for deceiving the public about the climate damages they knew their products would cause. The plaintiffs in each of these cases have made the following argument: Big Oil companies knew, they lied, and they should be held accountable.

Each of these cases has been brought under one or more of the following legal theories:

The polluter pays principle is the underlying basis for the common law torts claims of nuisance, trespass and negligence alleged in several suits. This principle maintains that those who produce pollution should bear the costs of the damage to human health or the environment. In other words, the fossil fuel industry should pay for their fair share of the climate damages that they have caused.

Claims for design defect or failure to warn consumers arise when a producer or manufacturer knew or should have known that the normal use of its product would cause harm and fails to act on this knowledge. The fossil fuel industry put its products into the stream of commerce with full knowledge of the catastrophic climate consequences, and therefore should be liable for the harms.

“Climate fraud” lawsuits seek to hold fossil fuel companies and their trade associations (strictly) liable for misleading and deceptive marketing and promotion of fossil fuels. State consumer protection statutes have proven to be an effective tool in holding corporate actors accountable for their lies and deception. These statutes were at the heart of the successful Attorney General-led tobacco litigation in the 1990s, as well as the recent wave of opioid litigation.

The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act is a U.S. federal law that allows for the prosecution of individuals, companies, associations and more that have coordinated and conspired to conduct unlawful and fraudulent activities that have caused harm to another’s business or property. Many states have similar laws as well.

Climate Liability Litigation
Climate Damages (Cost Recovery) & Climate Fraud (Consumer Protection)

February 2024 — The City of Chicago filed a lawsuit against major oil companies and the American Petroleum Institute to hold them accountable for climate deception and the damage it has caused to the city.

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September 2023 — California is seeking to make five Big Oil companies and the American Petroleum Institute pay for lying to the public about the central role of their fossil fuel products in the climate crisis.

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October 2022 — New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin filed a lawsuit against ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips, and the American Petroleum Institute for the damage that their climate deception is causing to communities across the state.

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April 2021 — Anne Arundel County is seeking to hold major oil companies and the American Petroleum Institute accountable for their climate deception — and to make them pay a fair share of the climate damages they knowingly caused.

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February 2021 — The City of Annapolis is seeking to hold major oil companies and the American Petroleum Institute accountable for their climate deception — and to make them pay a fair share of the climate damages they knowingly caused.

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September, 2020 — Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings filed a lawsuit against 31 fossil fuel companies “to hold them accountable for decades of deception about the role their products play in causing climate change, the harm that is causing in Delaware, and for the mounting costs of surviving those harms.”

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September 2020 — The City of Charleston is suing 24 fossil fuel companies to hold them accountable for lying about climate change harms they knowingly caused — and to make them pay a fair share of the damage. Charleston’s was the first such lawsuit filed in the American South.

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July 2018 — The City of Baltimore is suing 26 oil and gas companies whose products — and the decades-long campaigns of deception regarding their repercussions — have left the city unduly exposed to an onslaught of climate-caused threats.

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April 2018 — In the first climate liability case filed by landlocked communities, three Colorado municipalities sued ExxonMobil and Suncor Energy to recover the cost of local climate damages the companies knowingly caused.

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Climate Fraud (Consumer Protection)

September 2021 — The Vermont Attorney General’s Office filed a consumer protection lawsuit against Exxon, Shell, and other major oil and gas companies for “numerous deceptive acts and unfair practices in connection with their marketing, distribution, and sale of gasoline and other fossil fuel products to consumers within the State.”

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April 2021 — New York City filed a consumer protection lawsuit against ExxonMobil, Shell, BP and the American Petroleum Institute for engaging in deceptive trade practices “about the central role their products play in causing the climate crisis,” in violation of the city’s consumer protection law.

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September, 2020 — Connecticut Attorney General William Tong is suing ExxonMobil under the state’s consumer protection law for the company’s “ongoing, systematic campaign of lies and deception to hide from the public what ExxonMobil has known for decades — that burning fossil fuels undeniably contributes to climate change.”

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June 2020 — D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine filed a consumer protection lawsuit against ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, and Shell for misleading consumers about the role their fossil fuel products play in causing climate change.

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June 2020 — Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison filed a consumer fraud lawsuit against ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, and the American Petroleum Institute for conducting a “campaign of deception” to mislead consumers about the science of climate change and failing to disclose their knowledge that fossil fuel products cause global warming.

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October 2019 — The Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office filed a consumer and investor fraud lawsuit against ExxonMobil in state court, charging the fossil fuel company with systematically and intentionally misleading consumers and investors about its role in causing climate change.

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Climate Damages (Cost Recovery)

December 2023 — The Shoalwater Bay Indian Tribe, on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, seeks to hold major fossil fuel companies accountable for the hundreds of millions of dollars in costs to relocate their community to higher ground and protect their people, property, and heritage from the “existential threats” of climate change, including rising seas and floods.

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December 2023 – The Makah Indian Tribe, on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, seeks to hold major fossil fuel companies “accountable for hiding the truth about climate change and the effects of burning fossil fuels.” Climate change, particularly rising seas and flood, has created “existential threats” to their people, land, and infrastructure, forcing the tribe to relocate to higher ground.

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June 2023 — Multnomah County’s climate accountability lawsuit is the first to seek damages for the deadly 2021 Pacific Northwest heat dome, which scientists say was “virtually impossible without human-caused climate change.”

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October, 2020 — Maui County is suing Exxon, Chevron, BP, Shell, and more than a dozen other fossil fuel companies to hold them accountable for their climate deception and the resulting harm it caused to the county’s islands.

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March 2020 — The City and County of Honolulu is suing major oil and gas companies to hold them accountable for the cost of climate damages they knew their businesses would create and intensify.

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July 2018 — With 400 miles of vulnerable shoreline, Rhode Island became the first state to file suit against a fleet of fossil fuel companies — including ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, and BP — to recover costs from climate damages, ranging from severe storms and drought to considerable sea level rise and coastal flooding.

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Jan. 2018 — Although home to a Chevron refinery, Richmond did not hesitate to name the company and 28 other climate polluters in its lawsuit seeking to hold these companies accountable for their climate deception and the resulting damage.

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Sept. 2017 — The Bay Area municipalities are seeking to hold ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, and ConocoPhillips accountable for a wide range of costs to protect their communities from rising seas, floods, and other climate damages.

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July 2017 — These three lawsuits were among the first climate cost recovery lawsuits in the U.S. The municipalities are seeking to hold 36 major fossil fuel companies accountable for costs associated with protecting critical infrastructure from more frequent flooding, beach erosion, sea-level rise, and other climate damages.

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Dec. 2017 — Alleging negligence and seeking potentially hundreds of millions in damages, Santa Cruz officials filed a climate damages lawsuit against 29 fossil fuel companies.

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Racketeering

December 2023 — San Juan, the largest municipality in Puerto Rico, charges major fossil fuel companies with violating the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and seeks damages for the 2017 hurricane season that devastated the U.S. territory.

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November 2022 — A group of 37 Puerto Rico municipalities filed the first-ever federal class-action lawsuit that charges major fossil fuel companies with violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act and seeks damages for the 2017 hurricane season that devastated the U.S. territory.

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September 2020 — Hoboken, the coastal “Mile Square City,” is the first municipality to file a climate liability lawsuit in New Jersey. The city’s lawsuit argues that ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and the American Petroleum Institute’s climate deception violates the state’s consumer fraud statute and provides grounds for common law claims of public and private nuisance, trespass and negligence.

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Other Legal Actions to Protect Communities

July 2017 – A lawsuit brought by the Conservation Law Foundation alleges that Shell has failed to take measures to protect its Providence Terminal — and in turn the Providence River and nearby communities — from the effects of climate change.

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Sept. 2016 – The pioneering suit argues that Exxon is violating the Clean Water Act and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, because it has failed to take climate impacts into account in the operation of its Everett oil terminal.

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