Three years of after a major climate litigation effort collapsed in Canada, campaign supporters are once again trying their luck after the city of Vancouver recently voted to set aside more than half-million dollars to pay for the cost of litigation.
The Vancouver Sun reported:
“Vancouver council has voted 6-5 in favour of spending up to $660,000 to participate in a proposed legal action that will ask the world’s major oil companies to pay municipalities to help cover climate-change related costs like seawall repairs and protections from extreme heat.”
The vote to entertain the possibility of lawsuit was far from unanimous, however, and it required the mayor to break a tie among council members, and the Vancouver Sun made it clear this wasn’t not an organic, local effort but rather driven by a major anti-energy activist group:
“The idea of a class-action lawsuit being brought by municipalities against major oil companies is advocated by the Vancouver-based West Coast Environmental Law’s recently launched Sue Big Oil campaign.”
WCEL has even set up a campaign for climate litigation called “Sue Big Oil” and is actively pressuring local governments in recent months, as CBC reported:
“Environmental advocates are calling on British Columbians and local governments to back a plan to take oil companies to court for their role in climate change. West Coast Environmental Law launched a campaign called ‘Sue Big Oil’ on Wednesday, asking people to sign a declaration encouraging municipalities to offer up $1 per resident to go toward a class action lawsuit against fossil fuel companies.”
To help fund the effort, WCEL is “calling on B.C. municipalities to set one dollar aside per resident in a bid to raise money for a class-action lawsuit against major oil companies.”
WCEL has been pressuring local governments in Canada to file a lawsuit for years, but has never succeeded. In 2019, Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps backed off plans to file a lawsuit after initially calling for such a case and asking the Union of British Columbia Municipalities to the same, saying that she had “second thoughts.”
That same year, Fort St. John Mayor Lori Ackerman also dismissed climate litigation, saying the focus should be on collaboration:
“These lawsuits are the embodiment of a divisive approach that pits energy companies against municipalities and hardens age-old divides: rural versus urban, province versus province, right versus left. Our communities and our energy companies all agree that we must mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change. This is why collaboration must be at the center of our climate change strategy, bridging the divide and achieving real progress on this critical issue.”
Similar calls for climate litigation in Toronto and Whistler have also been met with intense backlash.
With such strong pushback in Canada and a long track record of losses in the United States, WCEL shouldn’t get their hopes up. All three climate litigation lawsuits that have been heard on the merits of the case in the United States have been soundly defeated and litigation supporters were also dealt a major setback at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Finally, As Mayor Ackerman stated, these lawsuits won’t solve the problem:
“The oil and gas industry is a major job creator for Fort St. John, and it also provides modern energy to the greater province. The Canadian energy sector is one of the cleanest in the world, and it is constantly developing new technology to improve operation efficiency and leave a lighter footprint. This innovative culture should be encouraged and is critical in finding solutions to climate change.”
It show Canadians realize this litigation campaign is an effort to shut down the nation’s oil and natural gas industry amid a global energy crisis, which would further undermine the economy and the fight against climate change.
