LETTER FROM SAN FRANCISCO
California Governor Gavin Newsom drew rapturous applause when he addressed the United Nations (UN) summit on Climate Ambition in New York on Wednesday, September 20. In front of an admittedly largely committed audience, he declared that the climate crisis was above all "a crisis of the fossil fuel industries." The Democrat castigated the oil companies for their practices of "deception" and "denial" of their responsibility for climate disruption.
The governor was the only American official invited to speak at this summit, which was intended to enshrine real achievements, not just pious wishes and promises of good behavior. Before his arrival in New York, Newsom, who no longer hides his presidential ambitions for 2028 – if not 2024 in the event of Joe Biden's failure – had taken care to present himself in his best light: that of governor of a state at the forefront of the energy transition.
A few days before the summit, California filed suit against five of the world's leading oil companies and their lobby, the American Petroleum Institute, on charges of misleading Americans about the environmental risks of fossil fuels. Five major oil companies are targeted by the lawsuit, which was filed in San Francisco Superior Court: ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips and Chevron.
The initiative is not the first of its kind in the United States – several local authorities have already tried to get the oil industry to admit its wrongdoing through the courts – but it is far from insignificant, given the weight of the state, the equivalent of the world's fifth largest economy, in the American economy.
"Big Oil has lied to us for over 50 years," Newsom said in a statement. "They hid the fact that they knew long ago that the fossil fuels they produced were dangerous to the planet. California is taking action to hold big polluters accountable."
The Californian government considers that the delay in the transition to renewable energies has caused billions of dollars in damage to the state. It is seeking compensation from the oil companies for the consequences of forest fires, floods, extreme heat and other phenomena that have increased in intensity owing to global warming.
According to the 135-page complaint, the executives of the targeted companies had been aware for decades of the potentially devastating consequences of their activities, but they knowingly "kept this information from politicians and the general public." Worse, they orchestrated "disinformation" campaigns. These deceptions have "delayed the response to global warming," with "a high cost to people, property and natural resources," said California Attorney General Rob Bonta in the complaint.
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