The city of Hoboken, New Jersey joined the so far fruitless climate litigation campaign on Wednesday, filing a lawsuit against ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and the American Petroleum Institute. The lawsuit alleges the production, promotion and sale of fossil fuels by these companies and the trade association caused a public nuisance that worsened the impacts of climate change in the municipality and the suit is yet another iteration of the debunked “Exxon Knew” theory.
Here are the four things to know about Hoboken’s new climate lawsuit:
Considering Activist Efforts in the State, It Was Predictable That A Lawsuit Would Come In New Jersey
Anyone staring at the puzzle pieces could predict that a municipality in New Jersey would soon file a climate lawsuit against energy producers.
Pay Up Climate Polluters, a project of the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI), has been campaigning hard in New Jersey, looking for anyone – the state attorney general, governor, municipalities, etc. – to file a lawsuit against the major energy companies. CCI is supported by the Rockefellers and personally approached Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison to convince him to file his climate lawsuit.
Last week, for example, CCI organized and co-hosted a Monmouth University panel where a potential New Jersey climate lawsuit was extensively discussed. One participant in that panel was Marco Simons – the general counsel for EarthRights International and lead counsel in the lawsuit brought by the city of Boulder, Boulder County and San Miguel County against ExxonMobil and Suncor Energy in Colorado in 2018. The panel also included Brenda Ekwurzel of the Union of Concerned Scientists, the group that co-hosted the infamous 2012 La Jolla Conference, where the strategy to bring climate litigation against energy companies was devised, and that pitched state attorneys general on pursuing climate lawsuits.
Hoboken was also one of the cities that Pay Up Climate Polluters included in their 2019 study, “Climate Costs in 2040,” that sought to pin the costs associated with climate mitigation efforts on energy companies by creating a false dichotomy that it’s either on the companies or taxpayers.
Recently, the Democratic-led New Jersey Senate Environment and Energy Committee passed a resolution that calls on the governor and the attorney general to file a climate lawsuit against major energy companies. The resolution has yet to receive a vote by the full Senate, but some fellow Democrats are already pointing out the issues with pursing such litigation.
Frank Robinson, the former executive director of the New Jersey General Assembly Democratic Office, rebutted his own party and said the Senate should reject the resolution because it won’t help solve climate change and the blame can’t squarely be placed on just energy companies. He wrote in an op-ed:
“It’s silly to lay the blame for climate change at the feet of a few energy companies who make products we all use. After all, energy manufacturers are a key part of the solution to climate change. Suing them doesn’t just miss the point, but threatens to set back climate change progress and jeopardize valuable American jobs. All individuals, consumers of agricultural products, or users of construction or other energy-intensive sectors, for example, are emitters. Should everyone therefore be held liable for climate impacts?”
New Jersey’s Governor and Attorney General Are Silent On Lawsuits
Despite the major push by activists in the state, it seems state officials are reluctant to do more than pass a piece of legislation – especially those in key roles.
Both Governor Phil Murphy and Attorney General Gurbir Grewal haven’t said a word about climate lawsuits since the resolution calling on them to file suit was introduced nearly six months ago on March 16. This begs the question: Has Murphy’s and Grewal’s inaction forced activists like CCI to resort to a smaller target since the state government wouldn’t get on board with their plan? It’s possible.
New Plaintiffs’ Firms Enter The Game
The majority of climate lawsuits filed to date by municipalities and state attorneys general have been backed by one of two law firms: Sher Edling or Hagens Berman. These two firms are led, in part, by Vic Sher and Matt Pawa, respectively – two attorneys that have been at the heart of the climate litigation campaign since the beginning.
But Hoboken didn’t hire either firm. Instead, the city went with Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP and Krovatin Nau LLC – new players in the climate litigation campaign that don’t appear to have done any previous work on the issue.
Hoboken Cites The Debunked “Exxon Knew” Theory
Even with a new law firm, the Hoboken lawsuit kicks off by going all in on the debunked “Exxon Knew” theory, the unfounded assertion that ExxonMobil knew about the effects of climate change decades ago and hid that knowledge from the public. The first page of the complaint reads:
“Instead of addressing those threats, Defendants have spent the last fifty years deceiving the public about their central role in causing climate change in order to grease the wheels of their ever-expanding production and sale of fossil fuels.”
Apparently Hoboken didn’t get the memo that even the anti-energy activists and their allies in state government have conceded that “Exxon Knew” is a myth and makes for a terrible legal case.
Yet the lawsuit still cites InsideClimateNews (pg. 91) – the activist journalism outlet whose 2015 series drove “Exxon Knew.” But even ICN later admitted:
“We never said Exxon stopped its research [on climate change], nor suppressed the results.”
Additionally, the lawsuit claims that the energy companies named “make up more than 12% of global emissions between 1965 and 2017.” This allegation is directly pulled from the Climate Accountability Institute – a group founded by longtime activist Richard Heede and Harvard professor and activist Naomi Oreskes. Heede specifically developed his Carbon Majors database so plaintiffs could cite this so-called “attribution science” in its lawsuits. Heede later admitted his work isn’t about science but rather “an effort to curb the carbon industry’s enthusiasm for unabated fossil fuel development.”
Conclusion
Activists clearly spent plenty of time and resources pushing a climate litigation case in New Jersey, but having been rebuffed by a governor and attorney general that seemingly would rather not get involved, they settled for the City of Hoboken. Ultimately, however, Hoboken’s lawsuit is more of the same, relying on debunked “Exxon Knew” theories and activist research, this could very well be headed down the same path as the several other failed climate lawsuits brought by the cities San Francisco and Oakland and then New York City, and the New York Attorney General.
Moreover, the fact that this lawsuit is being led by law firms new to the climate litigation game is yet another sign that the losses by the plaintiffs’ attorney who have spearheaded these lawsuits over the years are piling up, calling into question just how much more fuel the floundering climate litigation campaign has left in the tank.
