Press Releases
January 10, 2025
CALIFORNIA— The deadly wildfires still raging across Southern California show the urgency of California’s legal efforts to hold Big Oil companies accountable for their decades-long climate deception and make them pay for the damages they’ve caused, the Center for Climate Integrity said today.
“California’s legal fight to make Big Oil pay for its climate deception is more urgent than ever,” said Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity. “Big Oil’s lies are a big part of why we haven’t taken serious steps to slow down climate change — and now the companies are fighting to deny Californians their day in court to make polluters pay for the damage they’ve caused. Enough. The people of California deserve their day in court to hold Big Oil accountable.”
The state’s lawsuit, filed by Attorney General Rob Bonta in 2023, points to a range of growing climate threats that have been fueled by Big Oil’s deception, including “an accelerated increase in the risk, occurrence, and intensity of wildfires in California, resulting in wildfire-related injuries to the State and its residents.”
“Californians and their families, communities, and small businesses should not have to bear all the costs of climate change alone; the companies that have polluted our air, choked our skies with smoke, wreaked havoc on our water cycle, and contaminated our lands must be made to mitigate the harms they have brought upon the State,” the lawsuit says.
In March, a state court rejected one of the oil and gas companies’ arguments to dismiss the case.
A Center for Climate Integrity study last year calculated that Los Angeles County alone faces $12.5 billion in costs by 2041 to protect residents and infrastructure from 14 climate change impacts, including nearly $1 billion for wildfires. That study did not include the cost to recover from disasters such as those facing the state today.
Background on U.S. Climate Accountability Lawsuits Against Big Oil:
Eleven attorneys general — in California, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico — and dozens of city, county, and tribal governments in California, Colorado, Hawai`i, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Washington, and Puerto Rico, have filed lawsuits to hold major oil and gas companies accountable for deceiving the public about their products’ role in climate change. These cases collectively represent more than 1 in 4 people living in the United States. Last year the attorney general of Michigan announced plans to take fossil fuel companies to court.