Legal pressure on the oil and gas industry’s majority share (69%) of global carbon dioxide emissions has intensified significantly in recent years, with climate lawsuits against the industry tripling in the last decade, according to a new report. Three categories of climate-related filings have spiked in that time frame: 38% request compensation for climate damages caused by fossil fuels; 16% challenge misleading advertising claims; and 12% aim to require companies to reduce their overall carbon emissions. Big Oil has yet to be legally required to pay up for causing damages to the environment, but research shows the industry’s liability – including for homes lost to disasters such as flooding – is significant and are estimated to be in the trillions of dollars.
Despite the increase of lawsuits working to hold Big Oil responsible, billionaires at the helm of the industry have doubled down.
In the last several years they funded a shady network of advocacy organizations, think tanks, and self-serving politicians with the goal of dismantling responsible investing at the state and federal levels.
- Despite the overwhelming research that climate change has created income loss for America’s farmers, polluter-backed judicial activist Leonord Leo recently launched a campaign to spread misinformation around ESG investing and galvanize support among the agriculture community.
- The State Financial Officers Foundation (SFOF), which has ties to extremists and major polluters like ExxonMobil and Koch Industries, most recently launched a new 501(c)(4) political arm, SFOF Action, to ramp up ongoing efforts to systematically ban responsible investing.
- In April 2024, Liberty Energy CEO Chris Wright appeared before the House Financial Services Committee for a hearing about the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposed climate risk disclosure rule, where he claimed the rule would impose “immense costs” on companies like the one he runs. However, research shows it would only cost Liberty Energy $739,000 annually, compared to the company’s $556 million in profits and Wright’s $5.5 million compensation package in 2023.
Learn more about the shadow leaders behind Big Oil’s anti-ESG campaign at ResponsibleInvestingWatch.US.
