The city of Chicago will sue oil and gas companies and their lobbyist group for “allegedly deceiving the public about the climate crisis.”
The mayor is seeking money so that the city can rebuild infrastructure and “fix damage that has occurred.” New York City and dozens of other cities have already done something similar.
But how do you prove that oil and gas have caused climate change? No scientific models have proven that so far. Zero. Not the UN’s IPCC, not the Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project or CMIP, not the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Models have suggested human-caused climate change but there is by no means a consensus. To sue oil and gas companies, they’d have to prove this, wouldn’t they? How can they do that when scientists have yet to do it? Or are they hoping to intimidate Big Oil with litigation that they hope will settle out of court?
Meanwhile in the UK, the government announced that it will leave the energy charter treaty (ECT), which would allow fossil fuel companies to sue governments for lost revenues. So governments can sue fossil fuel companies but they don’t want to be sued right back? Interesting, right?
