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"Courts across the country keep rejecting Big Oil's attempts to escape justice for their climate deception," said one advocate.
Advocates celebrated Monday after a Boulder, Colorado judge rejected attempts by ExxonMobil and Suncor Energy subsidiaries to dismiss a landmark lawsuit that seeks damages for the harms the fossil fuel companies have inflicted on the climate and local communities.
The lawsuit, brought in 2018 by the city and county of Boulder, argues that mounting climate costs "should be shared by the Suncor and Exxon defendants because they knowingly and substantially contributed to the climate crisis by producing, promoting, and selling a substantial portion of the fossil fuels that are causing and exacerbating climate change, while concealing and misrepresenting the dangers associated with their intended use."
Colorado Public Radionoted Monday that the lawsuit "cites the 2010 Fourmile Canyon fire and 2013 floods as examples of climate disasters in Boulder County."
"The case was filed before the Marshall fire swept through the area in the winter of 2021, incinerating more than 1,000 homes and causing more than $2 billion in damage in what is now considered the most destructive wildfire in state history," the outlet observed.
The legal challenge seeks relief under a Colorado consumer protection law and other local statutes, accusing the corporations of public and private nuisance, trespass, unjust enrichment, and civil conspiracy.
In an 81-page decision, Boulder County District Court Judge Robert Gunning rejected the Exxon and Suncor subsidiaries' claim that the state court lacked jurisdiction and concluded that "the public nuisance, private nuisance, trespass, conspiracy, and unjust enrichment claims may proceed against ExxonMobil, Suncor Energy, and Suncor Sales."
Ashley Stolzmann, Boulder County's commissioner, said Monday that the decision "reaffirms our stance: We are suffering from the impacts and heavy costs of the climate crisis, right here, right now."
"Today, we take a meaningful step towards accountability and ensuring our voices and hardships are acknowledged," Stolzmann added.
"The people of Boulder are now one crucial step closer to having their day in court to hold Exxon and Suncor accountable for their climate lies and the massive damages they've caused."
Monday's ruling represents the latest blow Exxon and Suncor have suffered during the yearslong legal battle. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the companies' attempt to move the case to federal court.
"Since the beginning, defendants have been arguing against a case we did not plead," said Sean Powers, a senior attorney with EarthRights International, which is representing the plaintiffs.
"Plaintiffs are not trying to litigate a solution to the climate crisis, they are seeking redress for harms they have suffered and will continue to suffer," Powers continued. "The only conduct at issue is defendants' own: what they knew, when they knew it, and what they did with that knowledge."
Boulder is among the dozens of local governments that have sued oil and gas companies in recent years, aiming to hold the industry accountable for severely damaging the climate and deceiving the public about the dangers of its extractive business model.
Exxon has known for decades about the link between burning fossil fuels and planetary warming and has worked to cast doubt on the science as it continues to drill in the face of worsening climate extremes across the globe.
"The people of Boulder are now one crucial step closer to having their day in court to hold Exxon and Suncor accountable for their climate lies and the massive damages they've caused," Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity, said Monday. "Courts across the country keep rejecting Big Oil's attempts to escape justice for their climate deception, and sooner or later these companies will have to explain the evidence of their misconduct to a jury."
"There are plans in place to protect the European Netherlands against sea-level rise and other consequences of the climate crisis, but for Bonaire this is not yet the case," one plaintiff said.
Eight residents of the Caribbean island of Bonaire sued the government of the Netherlands Thursday for not doing enough to protect the Dutch municipality from the climate emergency.
In the lawsuit, filed alongside Greenpeace Netherlands, the islanders demand that the Netherlands work with Bonaire to make a plan to protect it from the impacts of the climate crisis and that it do its "fair share" to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C by reaching net-zero by 2040 instead of 2050.
"The time for talking is over, we have to act," plaintiff Kjelld Kroon, a 28-year-old program creator, said in a statement. "I don't want to have to wait any longer, and that's why I'm taking action today."
As a low-lying Caribbean island, Bonaire is especially vulnerable to the climate crisis. A study commissioned by Greenpeace found that sea-level rise could cause permanent flooding on parts of the island by 2050 and submerge one-fifth of it by 2100. Rising temperatures would also devastate the coral reefs that the island relies on for tourism, fishing, and protection from storms; damage infrastructure and cultural heritage; and harm public health through more frequent heatwaves and vector-born diseases.
"Climate change is happening right now on Bonaire. It's getting increasingly hot and the rain showers are more frequent and more extreme. These downpours are causing flooding, inundating many houses. Including my mother's house," Kroon said.
Despite these risks, the plaintiffs say that the Netherlands has violated their human rights by not doing enough to protect Bonaire from the impact of rising temperatures caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels. The Netherlands has maintained a presence on Bonaire for nearly 400 years, and the island became a special municipality in 2010.
"It shouldn't matter whether you live on Bonaire, on Ameland, or in Valkenburg. It's the Dutch government's duty to protect all of us from the consequences of the climate crisis."
"The Caribbean Netherlands has been forgotten for too long," plaintiff Danique Martis, a 25-year-old social worker, said in a statement. "There are plans in place to protect the European Netherlands against sea-level rise and other consequences of the climate crisis, but for Bonaire this is not yet the case. It saddens me to see how, despite knowing their responsibility, the Dutch government has chosen to push our right to safety aside. For this reason, we are going to the court, so they have no choice but to act."
The plaintiffs sent a pre-trial letter to the Dutch government in May of 2023 to give it a chance to resolve their concerns without a trial, The Guardian reported.
However, the Netherlands responded that its net-zero timeline was sufficient. Plaintiffs also were not satisfied with meetings concerning adaptations.
"It shouldn't matter whether you live on Bonaire, on Ameland, or in Valkenburg. It's the Dutch government's duty to protect all of us from the consequences of the climate crisis," Andy Palmen, executive director of Greenpeace Netherland, said in a statement.
The lawsuit was delivered to the district court in the Hague Thursday as part of a protest march from the prime minister's office, according to Greenpeace. At the same time, plaintiffs held a press conference in the capital of Bonaire.
"The government has a duty to reduce global warming as much as possible, and right now it's failing to do so," Palmen said. "We demand more protective measures for Bonaire, and we want the Dutch government to speed up the reduction of carbon emissions from the whole of the Netherlands. This is in the interest of all of us."
This historic legal challenge seeks to make the defendants pay for the damage they have caused—and to stop the lying and obstruction.
“Humanity has opened the gates to hell.” That grim warning from U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres at New York’s Climate Ambition Summit came after the hottest summer on record as fires, floods and other climate-driven disasters have wreaked havoc around the world.
As an environmental lawyer working on the climate crisis for two decades, I’ve found it excruciating to watch the brutal toll mount. And I’m appalled to see the fossil fuel industry continuing to lie about climate science, block progress, and profit from its deadly, planet-heating product.
For years, the industry has blocked new legislation, slowed and watered down lifesaving agency rulemaking, and promoted false solutions like carbon capture and sequestration to actually prolong fossil fuel use.
But I’m heartened by the lawsuit just filed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta against five of the world’s largest oil companies and the American Petroleum Institute. Their game-changing legal action could supercharge California’s efforts to fight the climate crisis.
In the suit, filed on behalf of the people of California, the state challenges Big Oil for its decades-long deception campaigns. The industry’s disinformation was designed to prolong the fossil fuel era—and that’s exactly what it did.
California’s legal complaint makes the critical point that the defendants are still lying today, including through more subtly misleading advertising—greenwashing—that lulls people into thinking their dangerous products are somehow “low emissions” or environmentally friendly. The lawsuit seeks to make the defendants pay for the damage they have caused—and to stop the lying and obstruction.
Holding Big Oil accountable for the lies it has told and the damage it has done is incredibly important: Justice must be done. But this case also has the potential to boost all of California’s efforts on climate change by disrupting the fossil fuel industry’s successful, insidious campaigns to block progress.
For years, the industry has blocked new legislation, slowed and watered down lifesaving agency rulemaking, and promoted false solutions like carbon capture and sequestration to actually prolong fossil fuel use. California’s lawsuit, with its detailed catalogue of Big Oil’s misdeeds, makes it substantially harder for oil and gas companies to successfully deploy these tactics, even while the case is still pending.
The clarity with which the governor and attorney general are speaking about the case and the fossil fuel industry is also significant. In New York, Gov. Newsom said repeatedly, “The climate crisis is a fossil fuel crisis,” receiving well-deserved applause at the otherwise staid Climate Ambition Summit. This is important, because many people do not know that more than 85% of U.S. greenhouse pollution comes from oil, gas, and coal.
The governor’s case is also significant because California is the first jurisdiction with substantial fossil fuel production to bring a climate damages suit.
While California was once one of the world’s largest oil producers, production has been in decline for decades. Production, drilling, and permitting of new wells are all now dropping dramatically.
Indeed, this case builds upon historic steps Gov. Newsom has already taken to protect Californians from Big Oil, including banning fracking. He has also championed a statewide health-and-safety buffer law to protect people from toxic oil drilling near homes and schools.
The oil industry has delayed this lifesaving law by spending millions to qualify a referendum to overturn it. In November 2024, California voters will have the chance to vote to uphold the law and protect our kids from toxic oil industry pollution.
Newsom has also worked with the California legislature to pass a first-of-its kind price-gouging penalty law that established a new independent watchdog—the Division of Petroleum Market Oversight—to monitor the oil industry and prevent gouging. And with his executive order requiring that all new passenger vehicles sold in California be zero emissions by no later than 2035, Newsom is speeding the transition off oil altogether.
Other leaders should follow Gov. Newsom in holding Big Oil accountable—especially Pres. Joe Biden and his Justice Department. California’s leadership shows how we can thwart the oil industry’s horrific plans to disrupt climate action—and head off the hellish consequences.