California is the world’s largest economy to file a climate lawsuit against fossil fuel companies, joining more than 40 other U.S. states and municipalities

CALIFORNIA —  California has sued ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, Shell, ConocoPhillips, and the American Petroleum Institute to make them pay for lying to the public for decades about their fossil fuel products’ central role in the climate crisis, joining a growing nationwide wave of climate accountability lawsuits against Big Oil. 

California is now the world’s largest economy and the first major oil producing state to take fossil fuel companies to court for their climate deception. California Attorney General Rob Bonta is the ninth attorney general in the United States to sue Big Oil companies for fraud or climate damages, as well as the first to file such a lawsuit since the U.S. Supreme Court this spring declined requests from the fossil fuel industry to intervene in similar lawsuits in seven other states. Those cases are now advancing toward trial in state courts across the country.  

The attorney general’s lawsuit comes after eight California municipalities — San Francisco, Oakland, Santa Cruz, Richmond, Imperial Beach, and the counties of San Mateo, San Marin, and Santa Cruz — filed some of the nation’s first-ever climate lawsuits against fossil fuel companies in 2017 and 2018. Several of those cases are now proceeding toward trial in state courts.

Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity, released the following statement: 

“California’s decision to take Big Oil companies to court is a watershed moment in the rapidly expanding legal fight to hold major polluters accountable for decades of climate lies. Whether it’s fires, droughts, extreme heat, or sea-level rise, Californians have been living in a climate emergency caused by the fossil fuel industry, and now the state is taking decisive action to make those polluters pay.   

“As similar cases proceed toward trial, California's move is an unmistakable sign that the wave of climate lawsuits against Big Oil will keep growing and that these polluters’ days of escaping accountability for their lies are numbered. Just like tobacco and opioid companies, the oil and gas industry will have to face the evidence of its deception in court.”