This article was published by The Energy Mix on Feb. 22, 2024.
Chicago is joining a flood of lawsuits against fossil fuel companies with a court filing that aims to hold BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell accountable for local climate impacts.
“There is no justice without accountability,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said in a statement. “From the unprecedented poor air quality that we experienced last summer to the basement floodings that our residents on the West Side experienced, the consequences of this crisis are severe, as are the costs of surviving them. That is why we are seeking to hold these defendants accountable.”
“The climate change impacts that Chicago has faced and will continue to face—including more frequent and intense storms, flooding, droughts, extreme heat events, and shoreline erosion—are felt throughout every part of the city and disproportionately in low-income communities,” states the lawsuit by the United States’ third-largest city. Like a class action under development in Canada, the case seeks to hold oil and gas producers accountable for the specific costs the city faces as a result of climate pollution from oil and gas, like the US$188 million Chicago is spending on climate-related projects in low-income communities, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.
Tuesday’s 185-page filing in Cook County Circuit Court accuses the companies of “discrediting science and misleading the public as the climate crisis continued to wreak havoc on the planet,” the Sun-Times says. The city is also suing the country’s biggest fossil lobby group, the American Petroleum Institute (API), “which it accuses of conspiring with the companies to deceive consumers through disinformation campaigns even as the industry acknowledged internally that climate change was real.”
The civil suit levels 11 charges of fraud, nuisance, conspiracy, and negligence, the local paper adds, citing marketing materials and communications that claimed the companies were doing their part to fight climate change. “It’s not just that they knew, they misrepresented and withheld information for 50 years at least,” said city lawyer Rebecca Hirsch.
“The fossil fuel industry should be able to pay for the damage they’ve caused,” Chicago’s chief sustainability officer, Angela Tovar, told the Sun-Times. “We have to see accountability for the climate crisis.”
“This ongoing, coordinated campaign to wage meritless, politicized lawsuits against a foundational American industry and its workers is nothing more than a distraction from important national conversations and an enormous waste of taxpayer resources,” countered API general counsel Ryan Meyers. “Climate policy is for Congress to debate and decide—not the court system.”
Pat Parenteau, emeritus law professor at Vermont Law and Graduate School, told the Sun-Times that Chicago can expect some of “the wealthiest companies in the world” to wage a long, hard fight against the lawsuit.
“Chicago is signing up for many, many years of litigation,” he said. “Ten years is my estimate—if they get to the goal line and prove billions of dollars in damages.”
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