The lawsuits seek damages related to global warming under statutes prohibiting consumer fraud, deceptive trade practices and false advertising.
David Hasemyer reports for Inside Climate News
Minnesota has jumped into the climate litigation fray with a lawsuit seeking to hold ExxonMobil, Koch Industries and the American Petroleum Institute accountable for their role in accelerating climate change and the damage it has already caused.
Attorney General Keith Ellison filed the lawsuit Wednesday in Ramsey County District Court to stop deceptive practices by Exxon, three Koch industries entities and API related to the sale and promotion of petroleum products known to cause climate change, saying in a statement that they “have harmed Minnesotans’ health and our state’s environment, infrastructure, and economy.”
The District of Columbia filed a similar action Thursday morning. After years of investigation, Attorney General Karl Racine announced a lawsuit against Exxon, BP, Chevron, and Shell alleging the companies systematically and intentionally misled district consumers about the role their products play in causing climate change.
Calling climate change “one of the greatest threats facing humanity,” the lawsuit says the oil companies violated the District’s consumer protection law by concealing the fact that using fossil fuels increases greenhouse gas emissions and threatens the health of District residents and the environment. “Defendants also knew that these increases in greenhouse gas concentrations would increase global temperatures, which would in turn wreak havoc on the planet, causing long-lasting changes in all components of the climate system, resulting in severe, pervasive, and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems,” according to the lawsuit, filed in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.
The Minnesota lawsuit includes claims for consumer fraud, deceptive trade practices and false advertising. In addition to asking for an injunction barring further violation of these laws, the complaint seeks restitution for the harms Minnesotans have suffered, and asks the court to require the defendants pay for a public education campaign on climate change.
“The State seeks to ensure that the parties who have profited from avoiding the consequences and costs of dealing with global warming and its physical, environmental, social, and economic consequences, bear the costs of those impacts, rather than Minnesota taxpayers, residents, or broader segments of the public,” the lawsuit said.
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