2023-09-16 10:46:27
They would have caused millions of dollars in damage and misled public opinion by minimizing the risks to the climate due to fossil fuels. On Friday, September 15, California initiated proceedings against five of the largest oil companies in the world, reported the New York Times (NOW).
This legal action follows numerous others initiated by American cities, counties and states against interests linked to fossil fuels because of their environmental impact, against a backdrop of accusations of leading campaigns of disinformation.
The civil complaint was filed in San Francisco Superior Court against Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips and Chevron, which is headquartered in California. The American Petroleum Institute is also targeted, again according to the New York Times.
These companies and their associates have “intentionally minimized the risks posed by fossil fuels to the population, even though they were aware that their products could lead to significant global warming”, this since the 1950s, says the complaint, according to the daily. Representatives of the targeted entities did not immediately respond to requests for reaction, the agency said. NOW.
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“Catastrophic results”
California is calling for the creation of a fund to deal with future damage caused by climate change in this state, victim of forest fires, floods and other extreme phenomena fueled by global warming.
“Oil and gas company executives have known for decades that reliance on fossil fuels would cause these catastrophic results, but they have deprived the public and policymakers of this information by actively spreading misinformation on the subject.”adds the 135-page complaint, according to the newspaper.
Since the start, around six years ago, of the wave of procedures of this type against oil and gas firms, the sector has sought to counter the legal attacks by playing on the procedure.
But that effort suffered a major setback in May when the U.S. Supreme Court in two cases declined to consider an appeal, allowing the complaints to proceed in court. The prosecutions are inspired by those successfully brought against large tobacco companies, or against the pharmaceutical industry in the case of the proliferation of opioids.
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