Groundbreaking Lawsuit Accuses Big Oil of Conspiracy to Deceive Public About Climate Change

Attorney Stephen Susman helped file a groundbreaking lawsuit earlier this year on behalf of 400 Inupiat villagers in the Alaskan town of Kivalina who are being forced to relocate because of flooding caused by global warming. The suit accuses twenty oil, gas and electric companies, including ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, ConocoPhillips and Peabody, of being responsible for emitting millions of tons of greenhouse gases causing the Arctic ice to melt.

Guest:

Stephen Susman, founding partner of the law firm Susman Godfrey. He recently filed a pioneering global warming lawsuit against ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and twenty other oil, coal and electric companies, on behalf of residents of the Alaskan Native coastal village of Kivalina.

AMY GOODMAN: Earlier this week, a judge in Georgia blocked the construction of a coal-fired power plant, because the plant did not set limits on carbon dioxide emissions. In what’s being described as an unprecedented ruling, the judge said the plant could not receive an air pollution permit unless it limits its emissions.

Today, we’re going to look at the rapidly growing field of global warming litigation. I’m joined here in Aspen, Colorado by the attorney Stephen Susman. He’s the founding partner of the law firm Susman Godfrey. Earlier this year, he helped file a groundbreaking lawsuit on behalf of 400 villagers in the Alaskan town of Kivalina. They’re being forced to relocate because of flooding caused by global warming.

The suit accuses twenty oil, gas and electric companies of being responsible for emitting millions of tons of greenhouse gases, causing the Arctic ice to melt. Companies named in the suit include ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, ConocoPhillips and Peabody. The suit also accuses eight of the corporations of being involved in a conspiracy to mislead the public about the causes of global warming.

Susman and his legal team have adopted a legal strategy similar to that used by lawyers who fought Big Tobacco in the 1990s. Stephen Susman was also involved in that litigation: he was an attorney for the tobacco giant Philip Morris.

Stephen Susman also recently represented the Texas Cities for Clean Air Coalition in their successful effort to block the energy company TXU from building ten new coal-burning power plants. The case was featured in Robert Redford’s documentary Fighting Goliath: Texas Coal Wars.

Attorney Steve Susman joins me here in Aspen, Colorado. We welcome you to Democracy Now!

STEPHEN SUSMAN: Pleasure to be here.

AMY GOODMAN: Tell us about this lawsuit.

STEPHEN SUSMAN: Well, this lawsuit was—in these cases, you need to find the right plaintiff. This was the perfect plaintiff, because it was a village that has—a Native village that has standing under federal law to bring a lawsuit. This is not a class action. The problem with all the tobacco cases, initially, was that they had to be brought as class actions. Individuals’ injuries were too different to be asserted in a class action, so none of the tobacco cases were certified for class treatment. They became successful when the lawyers figured out a way to represent the states, and they didn’t have to be class action, so the state was the perfect plaintiff seeking Medicaid reimbursement. Here, we have a perfect plaintiff: they have federal law standing to sue for injuries to their village, because they’re a Native tribe—it does not have to be a class action—and they have sustained the most direct kind of injury and of interest from global warming.

(Continued here.)