Article
Are Republican attorneys being bought off by oil production giants?
Climate mitigation lawsuits have drastically increased over the past few years. And while courts in various countries have recently ruled in favor of the planet, Big Oil is now fighting back.
People getting down to the streets to fight against climate change
One such example of a lawsuit is City & County of Honolulu’s lawsuit against the fossil fuel company Sunoco LP to compensate for the damages done to the planet. It is the first climate liability lawsuit of its kind that has gone to trial and claims that these huge fossil fuel companies owe a big financial compensation for the damage done to the planet and for the damages to be done in future. This money shall be used to invest in green energy.
According to Heated, an investigative newsletter on the climate crisis, "Honolulu's climate lawsuit is an existential threat to Big Oil. So they’re buying Republican attorneys general to defend them in court."
“It’s all building toward more cases in more places using more legal theories to hold these companies accountable,” said Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity, a nonprofit offering legal and communication support to communities suing oil companies to the North Dakota Monitor.
Over 32 cases filed against fossil fuel companies
Wiles’ team has tracked about 32 such cases filed against big fossil fuel companies like BP, Exxon Mobil and Shell. These lawsuits argue that the oil companies through their own research decades ago have been aware of the connection between the burning of fossil fuels and climate change, and yet they tried to hide these facts all the same. News agencies like the Los Angeles Times and Inside Climate News had even reported on the same.
Climate goes to court!
According to The Columbian, these lawsuits argue that the fossil fuel industry, in its ‘hiding’ the facts from the public, is in clear violation of a variety of laws including fraud, racketeering, public nuisance, consumer protection, failure to warn, and so on. Experts say that if the big companies lose, then we are talking of billions of dollars worth of fines.
The Honolulu lawsuit has been facing more and more obstacles with each passing day. So much so that many fossil fuel-funded groups like the American Petroleum Institute have filed petitions to the U.S. Supreme Court and requested that the trial be stopped from moving forward.
Republican state attorneys file petitions against the climate lawsuits
An additional 20 Republican state attorneys general have filed similar petitions with the Supreme Court. Approximately half of the chief legal officers of the country are asking to put a stop on these cases. These lawsuits have received a hostile welcome from the Republican officials as well.
What is RAGA?
Science is clear that humanity needs to urgently curb emissions in order to avoid negative tipping points and to limit the temperature rise to a level that is manageable for our societies. However, the behavior of the Republic attorneys in this case seems like a strange choice of action. Apparently, this is in connection with the Republican Attorneys General Association, RAGA. According to Lisa Graves, executive director of True North Research, RAGA is a pay-to-play group. Speaking to Heated, she says, ‘It was created to allow industries to wash money into RAGA, which RAGA then uses to fuel the election campaigns and ambitions of AGs.’
“These AGs, their political futures are underwritten by RAGA,” Graves said. “And who underwrites RAGA? The fossil fuel industry, along with Leonard Leo. It’s not technically money laundering, but it has that appearance,” Graves said.
According to a The New York Times’ report in 2014, the members of this group, who can pay $25,000 as annual fees, have a hand in shaping the organization’s legal strategy via modes like ‘online RAGA briefing rooms’. Also, the members who pay $125,000 get access to private meetings with attorney generals and invitations to in-person events with them.
In 2016, the Center for Media and Democracy also got access to audio from one of these events. It was titled ‘Climate Change Debate: How Speech is Being Stifled’ and included former Alabama attorney general Luther Strange, AFPM president Chet Thompson, and noted fossil-funded climate denier Myron Ebell.
The discussion was about protecting ExxonMobil from climate lawsuits like Honolulu’s. Thompson said, ‘We’re facing a coordinated campaign to demonize, weaken and try to destroy the industry. However, he also said that stopping these lawsuits alone is not enough to protect the fossil fuel industry. It actually needed protection from almost all federal environmental regulation. And ever since then, the Republican attorneys general have been leading lawsuits against every environmental regulation till date.
In the words of the former Hawaii Supreme Court Justice Michael Wilson, “The AGs are violating their public duty to protect the future of their citizenry. This partisan political use of the rule of law is what has caused the judicial branch of government to descend to its lowest level of public approval in recorded history.”
Climate lawsuits from around the world
Prof Wim Thiery, a climate scientist involved in multiple climate change and litigation conferences said there are different subfields to climate litigation, like attribution science which supports climate reparation cases.
People from the world over are fighting against climate change: Photo by Varsa Mahananda
A recent example is the group of 2,000 Swiss women who filed a lawsuit against their government stating that Switzerland was failing to do enough for combating climate change and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled in their favor. Impact attribution research played a key role in this case. Dr Rupert Stewart-Smith, Oxford University researcher and Dr. Anna Vicedo-Cabrera, Swiss epidemiologist published a report that Swiss women are disproportionately at risk of heat-related mortality in Switzerland. This helped them get a ruling in their favor. This, along with many other such decisions like in India, Peru, and the US, will set a precedent for future climate lawsuits throughout the world.
European Court of Human Rights
Impact of climate change all over Asia
People the world over are experiencing extreme weather conditions, especially in Asia, according to the Dhaka Tribune. The south and eastern part of Asia have recorded extreme heat waves, with Bangladesh recording 40 degrees Celsius in April, with the worst of it yet to come.
Speaking of South Asia, India is currently facing the general elections. And the climate issue may not be on their agenda, but, according to the Indian Express, the significant decrease in voter turnout has led to the election authorities setting up a taskforce “to review the impact of heatwave[s]” on the election.
The highest court of India: the Supreme Court
Likewise, China has faced extreme floods again this year. According to Xinhua, over 110,000 have been evacuated from the Guangdong province in China post record-breaking rainfall that led to widespread flooding and vast economic losses. Southern China recorded more than double the usual rainfall in April this year, stated China Daily. According to a report from the Financial Times, the World Meteorological Organization has published a report warning that climate change “is causing major repercussions across Asia”.
An overview of the flooded Yangtze River
South Koreans are also filing lawsuits against their government for failure to protect 200 people, which included children and young environmental activists, by not taking proper action against climate change, according to a Reuters’ report. The list is getting longer and longer.
Climate lawsuits have seen an increase in the recent few years
According to the Global Climate Litigation Report: 2023 Status Review, about 2,180 climate-related cases were filed in 65 jurisdictions in various courts all over the world as of December 2022. The number of climate mitigation lawsuits have recorded a two-fold increase since 2017 and show no signs of slowing down. This proves that climate litigation is going to play a major role in securing climate action and justice.
Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP said, ‘Climate policies are far behind what is needed to keep global temperatures below the 1.5°C threshold, with extreme weather events and searing heat already baking our planet. People are increasingly turning to courts to combat the climate crisis, holding governments and the private sector accountable and making litigation a key mechanism for securing climate action and promoting climate justice.’ It seems like a head-on battle and the fight is still on.
Climate litigation more than doubles in five years, now a key tool in delivering climate justice
Nairobi, 27 July 2023 – The total number of climate change court cases has more than doubled since 2017 and is growing worldwide. These findings, published today by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, show that climate litigation is becoming an integral part of securing climate action and justice.
https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/climate-litigation-more-doubles-five-years-now-key-tool-delivering
Big Oil is quietly paying state legal officials
Honolulu's climate lawsuit is an existential threat to Big Oil. So they’re buying Republican attorneys general to defend them in court.
https://heated.world/p/big-oil-is-quietly-paying-state-legal
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1 w
Very scary! The battle in our courtrooms should be taken more seriously and reported on
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2 w
https://www.follow-this.org/
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2 w
I would argue that both parties are compromised in terms of big oil. It's is quite easy to look up statistics of big oil's funding and donations and you'd be surprised to learn that a lot of democrats are also on top of that list. Both parties may not have the best interests of the country at heart
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2 w
Supporting the continuity of these big oils to is supporting failure in. climate crisis fight
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2 w
@annett_michuki The biggest stumbling block is the leverage big oil has on the political class in terms of corruption et al. Not to mention the lump sums they receive from these corporations to influence policy.
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2 w
Attorneys that are biased in favor of Big Oil is a nightmare in broad daylight.
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2 w
@Markus_Lutteman one would think they'd stand up as the last line of defense for the planet and the people but no, they have to song to their master's tunes. Quite unfortunate for the planet