Exxon’s Climate Trial Is Over, But the Legal War Is Just Beginning
A dozen “public nuisance” lawsuits accuse fossil fuel giants of hiding, and denying, their knowledge of global warming.
Demonstrators outside New York State Supreme Court in lower Manhattan on Oct. 22, the first day of the Exxon Mobil trial.
Photographer: David ‘Dee’ Delgado/Bloomberg
When New York’s climate change lawsuit against Exxon Mobil went on trial last month in a Manhattan courtroom, the energy giant’s lead lawyer took great pains to emphasize that the state’s allegations weren’t really about climate change.
After all, Theodore Wells said, Exxon was accused of hatching a cynical scheme to mislead investors. The case was about an alleged securities fraud intended to mask the impact of global warming on Exxon’s finances, not a grand reckoning of its responsibility for the man-made phenomenon.