Last week, in what must have been a slow news cycle, outlets – including The New York Times and E&E News – reported on a new activist “report” that essentially tallied up the number of climate lawsuits in the world, leaving out a few key details in the process. 

On Thursday, just weeks ahead of NYC Climate Week and the anniversary of California’s filing of its lawsuit, Oil Change International published an “in depth analysis on the escalating wave” of climate lawsuits against the oil and gas industry.  

Glaringly missing from the report and its key findings, however, is the fact that every lawsuit attempting to hold oil and gas companies liable for climate damages that has been heard on their merits has been dismissed.  

This makes more sense with the context that Oil Change International has received millions of dollars from the very foundations driving the lawsuits being counted in the report, including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Oak Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, Wallace Global Fund II and the New Venture Fund. 

To recap the string of climate litigation defeats to date: 

1. People of the State of New York v. Exxon Mobil Corp: Once deemed “the trial of the century,” the New York Attorney General’s lawsuit against ExxonMobil ended in definitive flames in 2019. New York Supreme Court Justice Barry R. Ostrager found – despite the attorney general’s “hyperbolic” allegations – ExxonMobil did not mislead investors on how it accounted for climate costs in its business operations. 
2. City of New York v. BP p.l.c.: Ruling in favor of the companies, in April 2021, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit stated that the courts are not the proper place to regulate emissions and affirmed U.S. District Court Judge John Keenan’s 2018 dismissal of New York City’s case. 
3. Mayor & City Council of Baltimore v. BP p.l.c.: In July, a Maryland state judge dismissed Baltimore’s lawsuit, finding that its goal of holding the industry liable “for the effects of emissions made around the globe over the past several hundred years” went “beyond the limits of Maryland state law.” As she explained, these cases “were never intended by Congress to be handled by individual states.”  

And that’s not even mentioning two other cases that were voluntarily dismissed, or others that were outright rejected by bipartisan lawmakers before they could even be filed. 

Reminder: Who is Oil Change International? 

Oil Change International has deep ties to Rockefeller foundations and other activists pushing the climate litigation campaign and similar efforts to undermine responsible energy production in the United States. 

In 2016, Stephen Kretzmann of Oil Change International notably attended the strategy session at the shared offices of the Rockefeller Family Fund and Rockefeller Brothers Fund – the key financers and puppeteers of the climate litigation campaign – where activists plotted how to “delegitimize” ExxonMobil. Other attendees included representatives from well-known environmental organizations such as 350.org, Conservation Law Foundation, Greenpeace, and the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL). 

The last of the meeting agenda’s list of “common goals” was: “To drive Exxon & climate into center of 2016 election cycle.” Eight years later, one has to wonder if the same motivations were what drove Oil Change International to drop this nothingburger of a report two months before the 2024 election.  

Speaking of the election… 

Since the number of different cases is evidently more important than their legal viability, The New York Times tied its coverage of the report to another fringe legal angle that is being pushed by activists while climate lawsuits flounder. The outlet’s headline asked readers: “Climate Lawsuits Are Exploding. Are Homicide Charges Next?” 

Recall that earlier this year, E&E News reported that the Philadelphia District Attorney met with the architects of the climate homicide theory and “expressed interest in the idea”: 

“Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner — whose staff met with Arkush and others after their presentation at the University of Pennsylvania’s Carey Law School — expressed interest in the idea of bringing criminal charges against oil companies. He said his office ‘continues to explore legal avenues by which we may seek accountability from polluters.’” 

But at a time where even Vice President and Democratic Presidential nominee Kamala Harris is cleaning up her anti-fracking past in order to compete electorally in energy states like Pennsylvania, charging energy companies for “climate homicide” could not be more out of touch.  

Bottom line: This report – published by an organization with a goal of shutting the global oil and natural gas industry down – is missing critical information about the dismal fate of lawsuits that have been heard and dismissed, and is a clear mechanism to make white noise ahead of the Climate Week NYC and the upcoming election.