By Roger Armbrust
The world’s
major oil and gas company executives met in Houston this week at their annual
Cera conference, loudly putting their mouths where their money is.
As the
British daily newspaper The Guardian reported:
The bosses of the world’s leading oil and gas
companies have poured scorn on efforts to move away from fossil fuels,
complaining that a “visibly failing” transition to clean energy was being
pushed forward at an “unrealistic pace”.
The translation:
Big Oil has been investing more heavily over the past year in mega-merging, exploration,
production, and lobbying in direct conflict with global efforts to fight destructive
climate change. Their statements at Cera this week simply mirror their actions
to basically scorch the earth for profit.
Here’s just
one example:
At Cera,
Amin Nasser, chief executive at Saudi Aramco – the world’s biggest of Big Oil
-- told the gathering, to applause, “We
should abandon the fantasy of phasing out oil and gas, and instead invest in
them adequately.”
“Adequately,”
of course, is a loaded adverb to an industry that has made $281 billion in
profits just since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. An industry that is predicting
a growing global hunger for oil and gas, and encouraging it.
Charges
of Homicide?
Meanwhile,
away from the Big Oil voices, environmental advocates are measuring the
possibilities of U.S. civil and now criminal prosecutions to make the industry legally
pay for its words and actions.
They were, believe
it or not, encouraged last year in a ruling by the conservative-majority U.S.
Supreme Court.
In April 2023
the high court ruled in favor of anti-oil plaintiffs, allowing them to sue at
the state level, where oil companies feel odds favor the public over industry.
So, it’s no
coincidence that also last year, Public Citizen, a consumer-advocacy nonprofit,
introduced a new legal theory: fossil fuel companies could and should be tried
for homicide for causing climate-related deaths.
The
nonprofit’s cause is gaining support in progressive legal circles.
One reason
is that science has taken vocal stances critical of oil companies. One example:
In October 2022, The Lancet medical publication issued an annual report from
over 100 contributors. In it, doctors placed blame on the fossil fuels industry
for the world’s most dire health problems.
The opinions
coming from the Supreme Court and the medical community have widened the eyes
of progressives wanting to criminally sue the oil companies, and prosecutors
who might take the criminal cases.
“We’ve been really excited to see the curiosity, interest and
support these ideas have garnered from members of the legal community,
including from both former and current federal, state and local prosecutors,” Aaron
Regunberg, senior policy counsel with Public Citizen’s climate program, told The
Guardian this week.
Prosecution
vs. Conviction
However, a
prosecution does not necessarily a conviction make. Oil companies have the cash
to hire top defense attorneys, and the legal system itself can be costly and
full of delays that can frustrate less cash-flush plaintiffs in civil suits, and even prosecutors in criminal cases.
Most, but
not all, U.S. states require a prosecutor to take a case before a grand jury to
decide if it should go to criminal trial. So a prosecutor has those two
legal obstacles to get a conviction.
Also, a
criminal conviction for homicide logically can be harder to prove, considering
the variables of climate change. You can have witnesses who see a murderer pull
a gun and shoot a victim. But how do witnesses convince a jury that the victims
of hurricanes were murdered by oil companies? That can be very tricky, when
talented defense attorneys confuse the issue with their own scientific data and
witnesses.
Too, if a
prosecutor did struggle past all that and get a conviction, you can be sure the
appeal process would immediately click in. Eventually it might even make it all
the way to the Supreme Court. And while conservative justices might allow
environmentalists to sue at the state level, getting those judges to stay a
murder conviction on climate-change crime seems a tough call.
Also, in
this oligarchy of America where money means power, it seems an equally tough
call to get a sitting prosecutor to take on Big Oil, if he or she has future
political ambitions. The decider, of course, to every politician – including elected
prosecutors – is in the polls. If voters show a lawsuit against Big Oil can
help get you elected, then go for it. If not…well…
But if
environmentalists can find an ambitious prosecutor who truly cares about the
public, and who can garner a highly knowledgeable team to take on big corporate
lawyers, then two things might happen:
First,
fossil fuel giants would have to turn over records they’d rather keep secret, especially in a sensational criminal trial. That could help environmentalists win in the court of public opinion, even if
the court of law sides with Big Oil.
Second, that
public knowledge and hopefully outrage, in turn, might lead to election of
environmentally concerned legislators who could take on Big Oil.
But if you
want a change that great in America’s oligarchy, you’ll need to get organized,
get educated to the environmental issues, and get active in finding and
electing those caring candidates.
Major
Oil Companies Make Moves in Megamerger Frenzy | OilPrice.com
U.S.
oil & gas lobbying spend by party 2024 | Statista
At
CERAWeek, dueling visions on climate change on oil's home turf (axios.com)
Big
Oil Strikes Out At Supreme Court | OilPrice.com
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