Not content with merely watching the case against ExxonMobil crumble in a New York City courtroom last month, a British activist group has now decided to jump into the climate litigation campaign by pursuing legal action against another major oil company, this time over advertising practices that break exactly zero laws.

The Guardian newspaper – the megaphone of the anti-energy movement – reports that ClientEarth has filed a complaint against BP over the company’s recently-launched advertising campaign touting their work to lower emissions and pioneer new forms of energy.

So, what egregious crime did BP commit with these ads?

According to ClientEarth, it should be against the law for BP to talk about their innovation to address climate change while at the same time producing the oil and gas needed to power the world.

ClientEarth lawyer Sophie Marjanac:

“BP is spending millions on an advertising campaign to give the impression that it’s racing to renewables, that its gas is cleaner, and that it is part of the climate solution. This is a smokescreen. While BP’s advertising focuses on clean energy, in reality, more than 96% of the company’s annual capital expenditure is on oil and gas. According to its own figures, BP is spending less than £4 in every £100 on low-carbon investments each year. The rest is fueling the climate crisis.”

Got that?

ClientEarth wants to restrict free speech rights because BP isn’t doing business exactly how this environmental group wants it to be done. That’s a dangerous path to go down because activist groups are demanding rules that often have no basis in fact, which would distort business practices and put a chill on open dialogue.

Take Marjanac’s statement for example. ClientEarth claims that BP is lying when it says “[natural] gas is cleaner” despite the verifiable evidence to the contrary.

The group should actually check the stats though. Natural gas is the reason carbon dioxide emissions have plummeted by 30% in the UK over the last decade.

In the United States, the shift to natural gas power plants has led to the reduction of more than 2.8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions since 2005, making it the largest source of energy-related carbon savings, according to data from the Energy Information Administration.

Yet somehow, it gets even worse from ClientEarth. The group also wants BP to include large, Surgeon General-style disclaimers on their products.

The Guardian reports:

“ClientEarth is calling for the BP ads to be banned unless they include a health warning saying that using the company’s oil and gas products creates greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to the climate crisis.

“…ClientEarth said all fossil fuel advertising – including by BP’s rivals Exxon and Shell – should carry a significant health warning about the dangers the industry posed to the planet and to people or be banned. The warning, they said, should make clear that using the company’s oil and gas products creates greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global climate change – similar to warnings on cigarette packets.”

ClientEarth must have a direct line to Boston since this argument is copied from Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey. Her lawsuit against ExxonMobil is similarly predicated on the belief, ungrounded in facts or reality, that energy companies are required to include climate warnings in their advertising and on their gas pumps.

Newsflash to ClientEarth and AG Healey: Putting a disclaimer on a gas pump is a practice that’s not required by any government nor is it practiced by any energy company.

As former U.S. Interior Secretary Gail Norton said in response to Boulder, Colorado’s lawsuit against ExxonMobil, the comparison between energy and tobacco just doesn’t make sense:

“A second difference is that tobacco use is not an integral part of society in the same way as energy, so it is harder to argue energy production is an unreasonable activity or a nuisance. With sufficient motivation, Americans can put out that last cigarette, but no amount of motivation can remove every need to heat our homes, put the kids on a school bus, rush the injured to a hospital, or fly to the next business meeting.”