The city of new York has filed a lawsuit against five companies in connection with its impact on climate change. The lawsuit was filed against BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell.
New York argues that the five major oil companies played a role in global warming and requires compensation, which is calculated in billions of dollars spent on combating climate change.
Shell representative said the AP that the problem of global warming is not one of those that should be addressed in the courts. He also noted that this issue should be resolved through «sensible public policy». A BP representative declined to comment.
In a statement, new York mayor bill de Blasio said that the city «stands up in defense of future generations, becoming the first major U.S. city, separating pension funds from fossil fuels». Pension funds of the city will be prohibited to invest in oil companies. It is known that today the volume of investments of pension funds in securities of companies associated with oil production is about 5 billion dollars.
«We will bring the fight against climate change directly to these companies working on the extraction of fossil fuels that are aware of the consequences of this change and deliberately misled the public to protect their profits,» he said.
«The deteriorating condition of the climate depends on the work of the companies producing fossil fuels, whose greed put us in this position. We’re suing in order to cover the costs to make new York safer and more resilient to climate change».
In the lawsuit, the city said that the five largest oil companies in the world have a collective responsibility for over 11% of the total pollution the Earth’s atmosphere.
New York- not the first city, which is suing the oil giants. Last year a similar action to the five largest oil companies has filed a San Francisco and Oakland.
New York City will no longer participate in a system that endangers our people, that’s why we’re suing and divesting from Big Oil. #DivestNY pic.twitter.com/mRmngN3nrB
— Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) January 10, 2018
