Honolulu’s lawsuit against fossil fuel companies leads climate change legal fight

Honolulu – Honolulu is not the only one in his efforts to continue the fossil fuel companies to keep them responsible for the damage to climate change, but the city’s trial is more in -depth than a similar dispute across the country. An audience on Tuesday will indicate how these fights take place in court.

In 2020, the capital of Hawaii continued the large oil companies, notably Exxonmobil, Shell and Chevron, arguing that they knew for almost half a century that fossil combustible products created greenhouse gas pollution that warms the planet and changed the climate. Companies have also benefited from the consumption of oil, coal and natural gas while deceiving the public on the role of their products in provoking a global climate crisis, according to the trial.

The trial of Honolulu blames companies of the elevation of sea level around the island of the world renowned coast of Oahu. He also warns that hurricanes, waves of heat and other extreme times will be more frequent, as well as the warming of the ocean which will reduce the stocks of fish and kill the coral reefs that tourists love to dive into apnea.

The trial requires an undeveloped amount of damages. Lawyers and media representatives for most companies have not immediately responded to emails and telephone messages from the Associated Press requesting comments on the trial.

The representatives of Conocophillips and Phillips 66 sent e-mails saying that they do not comment on the litigation in progress.

A hearing is provided for in the State Court on Tuesday for a defense request which argues that the trial should be rejected because the period of limitation period of the State has expired. Honolulu’s complaints have been based on publicly known allegations for decades, according to the defense request for summary judgment.

“The question of climate change and how to attack him has long been part of public discussion and scientific research and the current debate for many decades,” said a shell spokesman in an email. “There is a vast public file of media articles, scientific journals and government reports for more than 50 years which make it clear. The suggestion that the complainants were not somehow aware of climate change is simply not credible.”

Although the case is still far from the trial, it is much closer than 30 similar proceedings on the national level carried by other states, cities and counties. The arguments of lawyer and the questions of the judge will give an idea of the way in which the two parties will present their affairs, said Michael Gerrard, founder and director of the faculty of the Columbia University Sabin Center for Climate Change Law.

“The first trial in one of these cases will be very important,” he said. “This will get a large amount of attention at the national or even global scale because the oil companies have not yet had to take a stand and defend themselves in a trial.”

The trial of Honolulu reached this hearing stage, in part because the Supreme Court of Hawaii rejected the requests to reject it and the Supreme Court of the United States refused to take it.

Meanwhile, a similar trial of the county of Maui, where a solid forest fire almost two years ago burned most of Lahaina and killed 102 people, is pending.

The state of Hawaii has also filed a similar prosecution, despite the American Department of Justice of May Suit Hawaii and Michigan for their legal action plans against fossil fuel companies, claiming that their climatic actions are in conflict with the federal authority and the energy domination program of President Donald Trump.

The Office of the Prosecutor General of Hawaii filed a request last week aimed at arising the federal trial of the Ministry of Justice: “allowing this case to proceed would give the license of the United States to exercise the federal courts as an arma against any dispute between the non-federal parties that an outgoing presidential administration hates.

The Honolulu trial drew the attention of Naomi Oreskes, an eminent professor of history of sciences at the University of Harvard, who submitted a declaration in a request in opposition to the request of the defendants for summary judgment.

Oreskes has parallels between fossil industries and tobacco. “The fossil fuels industry and its allies and substitutes have created an organized campaign to promote and support doubt on anthropogenic global warming and prevent significant action,” she wrote. “They did it by influencing consumers and the general public.”

Shortly before a trial of a group of young people against the Hawaii transport service was to be tried, the two parties settled the case last year, granting an ambitious requirement to reach any greenhouse gas emission in all modes of transport at the latest 2045.