Exxon and Chevron, among other major oil and coal companies, have had a lawsuit brought against them for the harm caused by extreme weather fuelled by climate change in the state of Oregon.
The lawsuit was filed in state court in Portland and argues that fossil fuel companies and trade groups have intentionally deceived the public on the dangers of burning their products for decades. Industry leaders are blamed for the 2021 heatwave that took hundreds of lives in the Pacific Northwest.
The lawsuit states that the heatwave was a “direct and foreseeable consequence” of the continued burning of fossil fuels.
Multnomah County, in Oregon, is seeking $50m in actual damages for the 2021 heat dome, which trapped heat causing high temperatures for a week in 2021. The county is also seeking $1.5bn in future damages and an additional $50bn to help the county better prepare for the changing climate.
The 2021 heat dome event broke temperature records across the state as temperatures reached almost 47°C. The lawsuit is the first claim tied to the 2021 heat dome and the first tied to a specific event that was worsened by climate change. It is, however, the 36th time that a municipality has sued fossil fuel companies for the alleged harms resulting from general climate change.
A total of 17 defendants are listed in the lawsuit, including Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Shell and the Western States Petroleum Association.
According to a study from the European Geosciences Union, the heatwave event would be “150 times less common without human induced climate change”.
“Our results provide a strong warning: our rapidly warming climate is bringing us into uncharted territory with significant consequences for health, well-being and livelihoods,” the report states.
Evidence continues to surface that the fossil fuel industry was aware of climate change for decades, but continued to lobby against it. ExxonMobil was aware of climate change almost 40 years ago, yet still spent more than $30m on climate denial groups between 1998 and 2014. Shell too knew about global warming for more than 30 years, yet backed a prominent Dutch climate denier in the 1990s.
“These businesses knew their products were unsafe and harmful, and they lied about it,” said Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson said in a statement. “They have profited massively from their lies and left the rest of us to suffer the consequences and pay for the damages.”
Chevron has called the lawsuit “counterproductive” and its contents “baseless”, while the American Petroleum Institute labelled it “meritless”.
