New York prosecutors consider criminal charges against Big Oil for causing climate disasters

This story was originally published by The Guardian and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

New York state prosecutors could press criminal charges against big oil for its role in fueling hurricanes and other climate disasters, lawyers wrote in a new prosecution memorandum that has been endorsed by elected officials across the state.

The 50-page document, published by the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen and the progressive prosecutors network Fair and Just Prosecution on Thursday, comes as the US south-east struggles to recover from the deadly hurricanes Helene and Milton, both of which scientists have found were exacerbated by the climate crisis. It details the havoc wrought on New York by 2021’s Hurricane Ida and 2012’s Hurricane Sandy, and other deadly climate events such as extreme heatwaves across the US this past summer.

These disasters are fueled by the climate crisis, which is primarily caused by the burning of fossil fuels. And a growing body of evidence shows that big oil knew about the climate dangers of its products but promoted them to the public anyway, the authors write.

“This conduct was not just amoral,” the memo says. “It was criminal.”

Officials who endorsed the strategy include Brad Hoylman-Sigal, the New York senate judiciary committee chair; Antonio Reynoso, the Brooklyn borough president, the state senator Kristen Gonzalez; the assemblymembers Emily Gallagher and Jessica González-Rojas; and the city councilmembers Sandy Nurse and Carmen De La Rosa.

“It is clear that the actions of big oil, major fossil fuel companies and their executives have endangered generations of Americans,” said González in a statement. “Big oil must be held accountable for their actions, and justice must be won for those who’ve suffered the devastating impacts of climate-related disasters.”

New York case law demonstrates that conduct like big oil’s can constitute reckless endangerment, the authors argue. They wrote that just a small number of oil and gas companies, controlled by just a few executives, have generated a substantial portion of all planet-heating pollution, while deceiving ordinary people about the dangers of their products in marketing, lobbying and other public-facing communications.

Internal documents show that fossil fuel companies have long understood “with shocking accuracy” that their products would cause major damage, the report says. In 1959, the physicist Edward Teller told oil industry leaders that the projected temperature rise associated with the sector’s planned emissions would be devastating for the state.

“It has been calculated that a temperature rise corresponding to a 10% increase in carbon dioxide will be sufficient to melt the ice caps and submerge New York,” he said at a symposium organized by the American Petroleum Institute, the country’s top fossil fuel lobby group.

And in 1982, an official at the oil corporation Exxon issued an internal report that found the global heating tied to fossil fuel emissions could “cause flooding on much of the US east coast”. Such conduct amounts to reckless endangerment, said Aaron Regunberg, senior policy counsel with Public Citizen’s climate program.

“Reckless endangerment occurs when someone engages in reckless conduct that risks injuring or killing another person,” he said. “That’s exactly what these companies and their CEOs have done.”

Forty cities and states have filed civil lawsuits against oil majors in recent years for their emissions and promotion of climate doubt. Public Citizen last year also proposed filing criminal charges – most notably, homicide – against the companies.

Asked for a response to the proposal last year, a spokesperson for the American Petroleum Institute said: “The record of the past two decades demonstrates that the industry has achieved its goal of providing affordable, reliable American energy to US consumers while substantially reducing emissions and our environmental footprint.”

But the scheme has sparked curiosity from experts and public officials, won broad support from likely US voters in polls and captured the imaginations of climate advocates.

“Big oil’s behavior is immoral, and it’s high time to recognize it’s also illegal,” said Durwood Zaelke, president of the advocacy non-profit Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development.

Public Citizen released a similar memo earlier this year laying out a case for Arizona prosecutors to press criminal charges against big oil for its role in a deadly 2023 heat wave. The New York case could be easier to make, Regunberg said.

While the Arizona memo proposes filing reckless manslaughter or second-degree murder claims, which have high standards for causation, the New York proposal calls for reckless endangerment, a charge that covers harm caused without explicit intent.

“Reckless endangerment statutes criminalize reckless conduct that creates a risk of injuring or killing someone,” he said. “So proving this crime doesn’t require the same demonstration of causation as offenses like homicide or assault, where prosecutors need to prove that a defendant’s conduct actually caused a specific victim’s injury or death.”

This proposal also opens the door for New York prosecutors to bring charges against individual oil executives, the memo says.

Rachel Rivera, a member of environmental justice group New York Communities for Change whose home was destroyed by Hurricane Sandy, expressed support for the proposal. Sandy “was done to us by oil and gas companies”, she said.

“If I committed a crime like that against a corporation, you can bet I’d get prosecuted,” said Rivera. “So why shouldn’t they be held accountable? Isn’t that why we have a criminal justice system?”