REMINDER: Hold Big Oil accountable for fueling climate change
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- Published on Wednesday, 12 June 2019 11:03
- Written by editor
r1 Donate today to hold Big Oil accountable for fueling climate change To view this email as a web page, go r19 June 2019 | Donate | Leave a Legacy 
Dear Paov,
You are an everyday climate hero, making green lifestyle choices and doing what you can within your power to make a difference in the fight against climate change.
So you’re likely aware of how climate change is reshaping and impacting our planet. Wildfires, drought, mass floods and violent storms are daily reminders of how rising temperatures are affecting ecosystems and communities in escalating, profound and frightening ways.
Will you give $5 a month to support legal strategies that will hold Big Oil accountable for fueling climate change?
How has our country, our planet – our home – reached this crisis? It has been almost thirty years since Canada first sat alongside world governments and promised to take climate action. Yet decades on, fossil fuel emissions have continued to rise while international agreements remain weak and unenforceable.
As a result of this systemic inaction in addressing the biggest environmental, health and economic threat of the century, taxpayers and the victims of climate change are forced to bear the loss of life and ecosystems and the costs of preparing for and rebuilding communities after climate impacts.1
But there is hope. British Columbians are taking climate justice into our own hands.
If fossil fuel companies – whose products are the major drivers of climate change – had to pay even a fraction of the associated climate costs, they would not be able to bankroll decades-long campaigns to mislead the public on climate science2 and lobby against government action. They would not be able out-compete renewables and would pivot towards sustainable alternatives without delay.
There are consequences for companies that sell products that they know cause harm. The tobacco, asbestos, lead-paint and pharmaceutical industries are just a few of the sectors that have learned this the hard way.
Please donate today for legal strategies to hold Big Oil accountable for fueling climate change.
In 1998, an internal Royal Dutch Shell memo predicted that as the impacts of climate change got worse, fossil fuel companies might be sued in a class-action lawsuit “on the grounds of neglecting what scientists (including their own) have been saying for years …”
West Coast Environmental Law empowers BC communities to hold Big Oil accountable for climate costs. BC communities are sending climate accountability letters to fossil fuel companies demanding compensation, and calling on the provincial government to enact a law to clarify the legal responsibility of these companies.
To date, more than 20 BC communities – representing about 460,000 British Columbians – have sent climate accountability letters to 20 of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies like Chevron, Exxon and Saudi Aramco. We are beginning to see serious conversations by local governments on the potential for a class-action climate lawsuit against global fossil fuel companies.
In 2018 more than 50 BC environmental, Indigenous, human rights and faith organizations signed on to our letter to the BC Premier asking that the provincial government enact a Liability for Climate Related Harms Act. The legislation – modelled on BC laws that define the legal liability of tobacco companies and opioid manufacturers for deaths caused by their products – will be a powerful tool in fighting climate change.
Litigation, climate accountability letters, and legislation are important tools in our legal toolbox for holding fossil fuel companies accountable for harm caused by their products – ensuring that the Chevrons and Exxons of the world have a financial incentive to stop working against a sustainable future.
Paov, history is in the making, and I hope you will join us in our pivotal climate law campaign for real change and hope for the future. Please become a monthly donor or donate to West Coast Environmental Law Research Foundation today.
Warmest regards,
Andrew Gage, Staff Lawyer
Climate Law in our Hands
For more information:
- Why hold fossil fuel companies accountable for climate costs?
- Most Canadians want Big Oil to pay for climate costs — Industry is gaslighting Whistler
- Climate Law in our Hands: Campaign Brief
[1] BC communities face millions, and collectively, billions, of dollars of expenditures to prepare for and recover from events made worse by climate change. It is estimated that climate is costing Canadians about $5 billion per year and rising. Currently taxpayers pay all of these costs while victims pay with their homes, their health and their lives.
[2] Big Oil knew in the 1960s that their products would cause the current climate conditions and devastating impacts to communities around the world. https://www.smokeandfumes.org/
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