In the wake of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on state climate litigation, longtime environmental activist Bill McKibben provided a helpful reminder about who is really driving frivolous cases against energy companies in state courts across the country.
McKibben’s recent New York Magazine piece documents many of these actors, including 350.org, the Rockefeller Family Fund, and the Rockefeller-funded Center for Climate Integrity (CCI). CCI in particular has emerged as the nexus for lobbying efforts, research, events, and social media campaigns aimed at pressuring states and municipalities to sue energy companies for the costs of climate change.
As EID Climate has shown previously, a network of Rockefeller organizations manufactured the entire climate litigation effort from the start by financially propping up various individuals and organizations in the activist, media, legal, PR and academic spheres. The origins of this campaign go back more than a decade to a June 2012 conference in La Jolla, California where activists began forming a unified strategy to attempt to mirror the lawsuits against big tobacco companies.
Since then, supporters of the campaign aimed to recruit state attorneys general and other public officials to file lawsuits and they set out to “delegitimize [ExxonMobil] as a political actor” by “creating scandal” through “rapid response … joint social media and coordinated organizing and media pushes.” And it’s all been funded by wealthy foundations, primarily a network of Rockefeller organizations that stood up the entire campaign.
CCI works behind the scenes to guide state and local lawmakers through the process of bringing climate litigation, referring to itself as an “extra set of hands” to help taxpayer-funded public officials. Further, recently obtained emails from New Jersey show that not only does the D.C.-based organization attempt to convince local lawmakers to bring litigation, but it also offers a suite of services titled “Accountability University” for municipal officials across the country. Displayed in CCI’s recruitment pitch deck, offerings include pro bono legal “expertise,” “sample legislation and analysis,” “messaging, talking points, press support,” and even “ghost writing.”
Further undermining the notion that climate litigation is a grassroots, locally led effort, in addition to Rockefeller funding, CCI has received millions from British billionaire Chris Hohn through the U.K.-based charity affiliated with Hohn’s hedge fund. Billionaires, who could not care less about the price of energy, are the ultimate drivers of this campaign, not the states and localities themselves.
Over the past few years, CCI has ramped up activity in select states, and positioned itself as the canary in the coalmine indicating impending litigation.
Beyond its state and local involvement, CCI’s role as the unofficial, national spokesperson for the litigation campaign was on full display in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s announcement last month. In a quote to The Guardian, Wiles said, “we are all pretty excited.” In statements to other outlets, he claimed that the Supreme Court had declined to “bail out” energy companies – implying that the plaintiffs’ claims would have fallen on deaf ears had the Court decided to move the Colorado municipalities’ suit to federal court.
Ironically, Wiles’s statement reveals the truth – that climate lawsuits are proven to be weak on the merits. Earlier this week, Energy In Depth Climate explained while the decision from SCOTUS has nothing to do with the merits of climate lawsuits, the plaintiffs have an uphill battle going forward, as every climate suit that has been heard on the merits to date has been a decisive failure.
McKibben admitted as much in his New York Magazine piece, where he acknowledged state lawsuits still face an uncertain path in spite of the Supreme Court’s decision, due in part to the limits of “attribution science”:
“None of this means that the cases [in state court] will be simple to prove. For one thing, events that happen in nature have multiple causes. And even when experts can attribute damage to a changed climate—a scientific field that is maturing rapidly—apportioning the blame to particular companies can be difficult.
“Although the lawsuits in Colorado, and those from other jurisdictions, are now back in state court, this doesn’t mean that federal law doesn’t apply—just as you can use the First Amendment to protect speech in a state court, oil-company lawyers can argue, for example, that the Clean Air Act should take precedence, and someday those arguments may wind up back before the Supreme Court.” (Emphasis added)
Even the funders admit that climate lawsuits are far-fetched. Lee Wasserman, Director of the Rockefeller Family Fund, also lamented to New York Magazine the “speculative” nature of these lawsuits has made it difficult historically to attract large law firms to work on these cases. However, that may be changing as trial lawyers see state litigation as a vehicle to extract legal fees from taxpayers, according to Sam Sankar of Earthjustice:
“I think there are a lot of plaintiffs’ lawyers who will say, ‘Can’t win if you don’t play.’ They’ll be telling cities, ‘If you don’t bring a suit, you may be missing out on something.’”
It is unclear whether Earthjustice is equally concerned about taxpayers missing out on their money as billionaires squander it on frivolous litigation.
Bottom Line: Although the plaintiffs and supporters of climate litigation portray their lawsuits as organic efforts to mitigate localized climate change damages, the involvement of activist groups like the Center for Climate Integrity make it clear that they’re anything but. Since the climate litigation campaign formally kicked off at La Jolla over a decade ago, climate lawsuits have been part of a politically motivated, nationally coordinated, and billionaire-funded effort to enact climate policy through the courtrooms and raise the cost of energy in the process.
