Reporter | Tian Siqi
Chris Finn, 65, runs a hotel in the town of Kingsoft, Colorado, usa, and also volunteers to serve as the town's fire chief. He has lived here for the rest of his life, but is skeptical that his grandson will still have a chance to spend his old age in his hometown — in recent years, the western U.S. states have been hit by record forest fires, and the town of Jinshan is at the forefront of the climate change crisis, with increasing pressure to survive and the economic burden that comes with it.
To adapt to climate change, the Colorado government has allocated funds to reduce the density of forests around the town to mitigate the threat of wildfires, but that's just the tip of the iceberg of what it costs to deal with global warming. Boulder County, the state, estimates that it will cost taxpayers $100 million over the next 30 years to adjust traffic and drainage systems to reduce the risk of wildfires. By 2050, Colorado's average annual temperature will rise by 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit to 6.5 degrees Fahrenheit, endangering the state's economic lifelines such as agriculture and skiing.
In Boulder County's view, the money should be paid for by the oil company that caused the climate crisis — it sued ExxonMobil, the largest U.S. oil company, and Suncor, a Colorado-based Canadian company.
In recent years, many U.S. states and regions have launched climate-related lawsuits against oil companies. In Boulder County, for example, the county government accused these energy companies of defrauding consumers because they had long discovered the environmental damage caused by the use of fossil fuels, but concealed evidence that could bring about a climate crisis. The lawsuit also alleges that the companies would fund the challenge of scientific research in order to continue selling oil.
Marco Simons, international counsel for Earth Rights, who represented the lawsuit, told The Guardian: "These companies would have told the Guardian 30 or 50 years ago that they would have told the truth what they knew, and it is much more difficult to change the status quo now than it is now." ”
Similar grounds have emerged in lawsuits in other states. In April, New York City sued ExxonMobil, BP, Royal Dutch Shell and industry group The American Petroleum Institute in state court, saying the companies sold so-called "cleaner" and "reduced" fuels at gas stations without disclosing the fuel's impact on the climate and "systematically and deliberately misleading consumers."
In June 2020, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison sued ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, and the American Petroleum Institute, accusing them of decades of fraud and deception. Analysts say the lawsuits not only point the finger at companies, but also hope to hold the American Petroleum Institute accountable for its role in the climate crisis for years, an industry group seen as the "nerve center" that has guided the industry's work over the past few decades.
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey sued ExxonMobil in October 2019, saying the latter had defrauded state investors and consumers about the impact of fossil fuels on the environment and the threat that the climate crisis posed to the value of their business.
According to the United Nations Environment Programme and the Sabine Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, the number of climate crisis cases pending in the United States has risen from 654 in 2017 to 1,200 in 2020.
The oil companies face litigation by moving trials from state courts to the federal system, which does not apply laws related to deceptive marketing and consumer fraud. Legal counsel Simmons added that oil companies may also argue that federal law does not provide any remedies in order to dismiss the cases.
On the other hand, the Denver Post, a local Colorado outlet, denounced the practice of comparing the harm caused by oil companies to tobacco companies, saying that consumers bear greater responsibility for the climate crisis: "These companies did not create demand for fossil fuels, but rather our own through lifestyles and consumption patterns." ”