California is taking some of the world’s biggest energy companies, including Shell, Exxon Mobil and Chevron, to court, accusing them of concealing the damage caused by fossil fuels on the state for more than half a century.
The strategy has echoes of an earlier fight: states’ legal battle against Big Tobacco in the 1990s.
It argues that the oil majors should pay fines for burying scientific evidence linking carbon emissions to greenhouse gases.
In the 1990s, California and dozens of other states brought cases against the four biggest U.S. tobacco companies.
The companies were also compelled to label cigarettes as potentially lethal, to change how and where they marketed them, and to disband the Tobacco Institute, the industry-funded trade group.
Persons:
” Rob Bonta
Organizations:
Shell, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Big Oil, Big Tobacco, American Petroleum Institute, Prosecutors, Tobacco Institute
Locations:
California