Attorney General Karl A. Racine sued Exxon Mobil, BP, Chevron, and Shell for systematically and intentionally misleading District consumers about the role their products play in causing climate change.
The Office of the Attorney General’s (OAG) lawsuit alleges major players in the fossil fuel industry knew as early as the 1950s that emissions from burning oil and gas posed an existential threat to humanity—and in response, the companies embarked on a multi-decade, multi-million-dollar public relations campaign to foment doubt and hostility towards climate research in order to protect profits.
As the scientific consensus around fossil fuels and climate change grew, the companies then exaggerated their commitments to reducing reliance on fossil fuels and concealing their products’ harm a practice that persists.
OAG is asking the court to order the companies to end their disinformation campaigns, provide relief for District consumers, and pay civil penalties.
Exxon Mobil, BP, Shell, and Chevron are among the world’s largest multinational producers of oil and gas.
Exxon Mobil is incorporated in New Jersey and headquartered in Irving, Texas, while Chevron is incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in San Ramon, California.
BP, headquartered in London, England, and Shell, headquartered in the Hague, Netherlands, are both incorporated in England and Wales.
All four serve as parent companies for numerous subsidiaries that explore, extract, refine, transport, market, and sell oil, gas, and other petroleum products, and all four have subsidiaries registered in the District of Columbia.
These companies have employed and financed several industry associations and industry-created front groups that carry out climate change disinformation and denial missions—including, the American Petroleum Institute and Global Climate Coalition.
Along with these industry associations and front groups, the companies choreographed a public relations effort modeled on Big Tobacco’s denial of tobacco’s harm, while privately investing in projects to protect existing fossil fuel infrastructure from the impacts of climate change.
The companies not only employed the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition—a fake grassroots citizen group created by Big Tobacco as part of the industry’s misinformation campaign they also funded and promoted some of the same scientists hired by tobacco companies.
These scientists disputed the conclusions of climate researchers, despite not having any training in climate science themselves.
As the public learned that defendants knew of their products’ role in causing climate change, the companies pivoted to misleading the public about their investments in sustainable energy and transition from fossil fuels. ■