On Monday, ExxonMobil filed request for documents in a Texas court against the California cities who filed suits against the company last September. The oil giant alleges the cities are part of a vast conspiracy designed to rob it of its right to free speech, which by implication refers to its denial of climate change, which is something Exxon’s top brass claim they don’t do anyway. Specifically, per the WSJ, Exxon is pointing to a discrepancy in how the cities described climate risks while trying to sell bonds (in which they didn’t quantify costs) versus how they’re attributing damages to ExxonMobil in this suit.
Interestingly, Exxon’s filing doesn’t seem to be making the argument that somehow the Rockefellers are behind these suits, a narrative the company has been pushing hard through oil-industry outlets like Energy In Depth and the Daily Caller. Blaming the Rockefellers has been the Exxon’s approach to handling the investigations from Massachusetts. When we last heard about this in December, Mass AG Healy pointed out that Exxon’s willingness to disclose more climate risk could be an inadvertent admission that they hadn’t previously been forthcoming with investors about climate risk. The suit will pick up again shortly, as Jan 12th is the deadline for Exxon to provide further arguments. We’ll see if they point to the Rockefellers as boogeymen.
Sowing this sort of disinformation campaign, coupled with the aggressively outlandish conspiracy theory court filings, is a pretty clear sign Exxon isn’t confident of its chances in court.
Which means yesterday’s news that New York City has filed a lawsuit against the company is sure to cause some headaches. The city is suing the five largest investor-owned oil companies--BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and Royal Dutch Shell along with Exxon--seeking damages to cover the “infrastructure improvements needed to protect New Yorkers from the increasing effects of climate change,” according to Climate Liability News. “We’re bringing the fight against climate change straight to the fossil fuel companies that knew about its effects and intentionally misled the public to protect their profits,” NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement yesterday.
Mayor de Blasio also announced that NYC will divest its five pension funds from $5 billion in fossil fuel investments, a major win for advocates who have been pushing for the change for years.
It’s worth noting that New York state has a history of including climate risks in its bond offerings, precisely what Exxon is complaining about in California. That means it’ll need a new exxcuse for pushing back in court. Or maybe they will accept responsibility for their actions, acknowledge that they funded a misinformation campaign to stave off the environmental protections that would cut into their profits, transition to producing a non-climate-changing source of energy, and begin living up to their claims to support climate policies.
Stranger things have happened, right?
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