Yesterday, New York Attorney General Underwood announced the state is suing Exxon Mobil for deceiving investors on climate change. Please see below for Corporate Accountability Executive Director Patti Lynn’s statement.
“The evidence justifying this lawsuit against Exxon Mobil is also animating a key tenet of the recently launched People’s Demands for climate justice. Corporations that lie to investors and manufacture doubt about the catastrophic global impact of their business, should have no say in climate policy. And most of all, Exxon and other fossil majors that are following its playbook should pay up for their abuses. Its business and accompanying climate denial machine have put the planet on the brink. 20 years ago Big Tobacco paid for a similar and deadly campaign of deceit. Exxon’s reckoning has come. The world can’t afford to pay — and keep paying — for Exxon’s impunity.
Credit to AG Underwood for demanding justice in a moment where Exxon is up to its old greenwash: attempting to mollify critics by spending a relative pittance advancing a carbon tax that absolves the corporation of past liability. People are demanding better. And today’s announcement offers hope that a new day is possible.”
