• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
Celebrating our 1,000th edition. The climate news you need
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  FEATURED
BREAKING: UN Nature Summit, the ‘Paris Conference for Biodiversity’, Moves to Montreal in December June 19, 2022
‘LET’S SUE BIG OIL’: Legal Team Launches Class Action Campaign for B.C. Municipalities June 17, 2022
‘It Could Have Been Any of Us’, Colleague Says, After Brazil Confirms Murders of Bruno Pereira, Dom Phillips June 17, 2022
Infrastructure Gap a ‘Life and Death’ Matter as Northern Canada Warms June 17, 2022
Ban Fossil Fuel Ads Like Tobacco Promos, Doctors Urge Ottawa June 10, 2022
Next
Prev
Home Demand & Distribution Cities & Communities

Climate Liability Claims May Soon Begin to Target Automakers

October 24, 2017
Reading time: 3 minutes

Ruben de Rijcke/Wikimedia Commons

Ruben de Rijcke/Wikimedia Commons

 

Internal combustion engine exhaust contributes to climate change, and the companies that put them in cars and trucks may soon be in the crosshairs of activist communities that are already suing the businesses producing the fossil fuel those vehicles run on.

“Over the course of the summer, five California municipalities filed statements of claim against many of the world’s largest oil and gas companies—including ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, Shell, and Canada’s Encana—claiming that these companies should be liable for the current and future costs incurred by these municipalities as a result of climate change,” writes Martin Olszynski, an assistant professor of law at the University of Calgary, on the Energy Collective blog.

The city of Victoria, B.C., has also served 20 of the world’s biggest fossil producers—including ExxonMobil, Chevron, and Shell—with a request letter asking them to help cover the costs that the community stands to incur to address the impacts of climate change. West Coast Environmental Law, the legal advocacy group that supported the letter, announced yesterday that the Vancouver Island city of Colwood had become the fourth B.C. to sign a similar missive.

Now, says Olszynski, “the world’s top automobile manufacturers could be next in the defendant line.” What sets automakers up for liability is a set of attributes their actions share not only with fossil fuel producers, but with the earlier behaviour of the tobacco industry.

Olszinski quotes Michael Burger, Executive Director of New York’s Sabin Centre for Climate Change Law, who summarized the moral centre of the fossil fuel case: “These companies knew,” he said. “They knew that climate change was happening, that fossil fuel production and use was causing it, and that continued fossil fuel production and use would only make it worse. They knew this, but they hid it. And then they lied about it, and paid other people to lie about it for them. All the while they profited from it, and plotted to profit more.”

The same case, Olszynski suggests, may be made against automakers. “The argument would be that automobile manufacturers breached the applicable standard of care by selling—and continuing to sell—internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles whose cumulative emissions create a reasonably foreseeable risk of harm to the plaintiffs by virtue of their contribution to anthropogenic climate change.”

Carmakers, he speculates, would claim they complied with applicable regulatory standards. But “Canadian law is also clear that mere compliance with regulatory standards is not determinative of liability in negligence.”

Olszynski finds further evidence for the carmakers’ potential liability in the differential effort they have made to promote ICE engines compared to electric vehicles, while claiming to be following rather than forming market preferences.

Collectively, America’s big three automakers—Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors—spent nearly US$10 billion on advertising in 2014, he notes. “That seems like a lot of money to spend on something that the industry claims to not control.” Ford’s campaigns promoted the ICE version of its Focus sedan 24 times as often as the zero-emission option for the same model.

In Canada, he adds, car companies frequently promote efficiency and emission claims for light cars, but neglect to provide comparable performance metrics for more polluting—and more profitable—light trucks.

“In my view, it is at least arguable that the automobile industry is—and has been for some time—in breach of its duty to warn consumers of the climate change risks associated with its ICE model vehicles, creating a reasonably foreseeable risk of harm to plaintiff municipalities.”



in Cities & Communities, Climate Impacts & Adaptation, Health & Safety, Insurance & Liability, International

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

Jason Woodhead/Flickr
Pipelines / Rail Transport

Trans Mountain Pipeline On Track to Lose $600 Million, Parliamentary Budget Officer Finds

June 24, 2022
288
Erik Whalen/wikimedia commons
Severe Storms & Flooding

Yellowstone Park Reopens, But Flood Recovery Could Take Years, Cost Billions

June 24, 2022
60
zephylwer0/pixabay
Supply Chains & Consumption

North American Steel, Aluminium Giants Lumber Toward Green Transition

June 24, 2022
147

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

Jason Woodhead/Flickr

Trans Mountain Pipeline On Track to Lose $600 Million, Parliamentary Budget Officer Finds

June 24, 2022
288
Ben_Kerckx/Pixabay

Plastics Cited as ‘Fossil Industry’s Plan B’ as Guilbeault Announces Partial Ban

June 24, 2022
171
zephylwer0/pixabay

North American Steel, Aluminium Giants Lumber Toward Green Transition

June 24, 2022
147
Nemaska Lithium/Facebook

Critical Minerals, Hydrogen Lead Ottawa’s Low-Carbon Industry Strategy

June 24, 2022
79
/PxFul

Canadian Farmers Offer Ottawa a Roadmap to Cut Agriculture Emissions

June 24, 2022
83
Bruce Reeve/Flickr

Opinion: Ontario’s New ‘Carbon Tax’ Looks Like the One Doug Ford Fought

June 7, 2022
1.5k

Recent Posts

Erik Whalen/wikimedia commons

Yellowstone Park Reopens, But Flood Recovery Could Take Years, Cost Billions

June 24, 2022
60
TAFE SA TONSLEY/Flickr

Clean Energy Investment to Exceed $1.4T This Year, Still Falls Short of Climate Goals: IEA

June 24, 2022
80
Cjp24/Wikimedia Commons

UK Green Shift Won’t Repeat Job Destruction of Deindustrialization, Report Finds

June 24, 2022
29
Pavlofox/Pixabay

Millions Face Famine as Climate Disasters, Ukraine War Slash Food Supplies

June 24, 2022
38
Chris Lim/Wikimedia Commons

China Has 9 Times the Wind, Solar Potential It Needs for Carbon Neutrality

June 24, 2022
54
willenhallwench / Pixabay

PG&E Risks Greenwashing with Definition of ‘Scope 4’ Emissions

June 24, 2022
44
Next Post
Roosevelt Skerrit/Wikimedia Commons

Puerto Rico Gives $300-Million Grid Job to Two Guys from U.S. Interior Secretary’s Home Town

The Energy Mix

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}