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Michael Liebreich
@MLiebreich
, 28 tweets, 12 min read Read on Twitter
"If fossil fuel companies are ever found liable for the full extent of climate damage that could be caused by their products, and expected to make reparations, they would immediately be insolvent."

My latest for @BloombergNEF
about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich…
Last week Purdue Pharma entered Chapter 11 after agreeing a $12 billion payout, including $3 billion from its owners, because of the role its Oxycontin painkiller played in the US opioid crisis. Climate campaigners will be poring over the case for lessons.
about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich…
Purdue Pharma had been hit by 2,600 lawsuits over 20 years, but continued its aggressive marketing campaigns and contributed to a decade of industry lobbying, to the tune of around $90 million per year and employing an average of 1,370 lobbyists. Not good.
about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich…
The @ColumbiaClimate Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, maintains a database of climate-related lawsuits. It contains 1,380 entries – 1,075 domestic U.S. and 305 international. The U.S. ones alone invoke 200 statutes involving 222 courts or agencies.
about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich…
The big question is whether these climate lawsuits - and many more, sure to be filed in the coming months and years - represent an irritant to fossil fuel companies, a meaningful drag on fossil their costs and costs of capital, or an existential threat.
about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich…
Figures for the scale of potential climate liabilities vary widely. Oil and gas companies may face $1 trillion of physical risks, and could be blamed by investors for another $2 trillion of stranded assets in the event of global action on climate change.
about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich…
A report this year by The Network for Greening the Financial System, a group of central banks working to manage climate risks, cites International Energy Agency and International Renewable Energy Agency figures ranging from $4 trillion to $20 trillion.
about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich…
A @TyndallCentre briefing note for the IPCC claims that damage from 1.5°C of warming by 2100 would be $54 trillion in today’s money, for 2.0°C it would be $69 trillion, and for 3.7°C, $551 trillion – more than all the wealth and assets in existence today.
about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich…
25 large organisations account for over half of all global emissions since 1988. The top 100 account for 71%. Leading quoted emitters are ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, Chevron, Peabody, Total, and BHP Billiton. Plus soon-to-be-quoted Saudi Aramco, of course. 🤔
about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich…
So if fossil fuel companies were ever expected to pay for the damage caused by climate change, they would be insolvent. Not saying it will or should happen, just saying. And note that insolvency of an asset owner does not mean their assets are shut down.
about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich…
Some of the lawsuits are real David versus Goliath battles. An Alaskan village sued Exxon for climate-related flooding (and lost). A Fishermen’s association is claiming that the algal blooms turning the Dungeness crab fisheries toxic are climate-driven.
about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich…
Big Supreme Court decisions include the 2003 verdict that carbon dioxide is a type of pollution and must be regulated by the EPA, and the 2011 one that emitters cannot be sued under State nuisance laws because greenhouse gases are regulated by... the EPA!
about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich…
That 2011 Supreme Court decision has defined oil majors' legal strategy ever since: cite AEP v. Connecticut to get the case moved to Federal court, then get it dismissed by arguing that climate change is too hard/too political to resolve in a civil court.
about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich…
Juliana v. United States 2015 asserted that the government was violating the plainfiffs right to life and liberty by allowing greenhouse gas emissions to grow. The US District Court of Oregon agreed, but the US government is appealing to the Supreme Court.
about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich…
In Holland, @urgenda and 900 citizens demanded that the government increase the country’s emissions reduction goal vis-à-vis 1990 levels from 17% to 25% by 2020. They won. The Supreme Court has heard the appeal and final judgement will be published soon.
about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich…
Saúl Luciano Lliuya, a farmer and mountain guide from Huaraz, Peru, is pursuing RWE for 4.7% of the cost of protecting his property from flooding from a glacial lake being swollen by the climate-accelerated melting of a local Glacier. The case is ongoing.
about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich…
Lliuya versus RWE illustrates the enormous challenge facing climate litigants in extracting damages. Even when figure out which court has jurisdiction and win your case, what proportion of damages should you get? The science of attribution is not mature.
about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich…
The Conservation Law Foundation is suing ExxonMobil to force it to protect its Mystic River facility in Massachusetts from flooding. A win would create precedent that companies and municipalities have to account for climate in resilience planning. Big.
about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich…
Now the biggies. First US nuisance law. San Mateo County, Marin County & Imperial Beach filed in 2017 against defendants responsible for over 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions since 1965 plus the American Petroleum Institute and other associations.
about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich…
A similar case to San Mateo, Marin, Imperial Beach saw San Francisco & Oakland file for nuisance against BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Shell. 10 states have joined in. The fight over jurisdiction in both cases will soon be heard by a federal panel. Popcorn.
about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich…
Another similar case alleging nuisance was filed by Rhode Island and Baltimore. Once again, the defendants asked for the case to be redirected to a Federal court, but were rebuffed. The defendants have asked for a stay, pending an appeal of that decision.
about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich…
The other biggie: securities law. In 2015, @insideclimate and @latimes published exposés based on internal docs revealing that ExxonMobil continued to downplay climate risks and cast doubt on the science despite excellent understanding of the risks.
about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich…
In 2016 the Securities and Exchange Commission opened an investigation into the question of whether investors had been misled, examining over 4.2 million documents. It closed it two years later without laying charges or exonerating the company.
about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich…
In 2018 the New York Attorney General filed a fraud suit, alleging that ExxonMobil deceived investors over risks posed by climate change regulations to its business. An ExxonMobil spokesman called the lawsuit “tainted” and meritless. Trial starts 23 Oct.
about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich…
So there you have it. The oil majors and other fossil fuel producers are facing a world of legal woes. The next 18 months is likely to see some big wins and some big losses. And longer term, the situation isn't going to get any easier for them.
about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich…
One reason many oil companies are switching to supporting a carbon tax is that they will use its introduction to argue for a comprehensive amnesty against historic liabilities and indemnity against future ones. Society will have to decide if that's OK.
about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich…
By way of precedent, Purdue Pharma (as we've seen) was put into Chapter 11, as was Dow Corning (breast implants) and Johns Manville (asbestos). But tobacco companies were not. They are still very profitable and pushing cigarettes in the developing world.
about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich…
So, back to the big question: climate litigation is more than an irritant for the oil majors. It will be a serious drag on costs, management time and cost of capital; it may even lead to a carbon tax. But if I had to guess, it's not an existential threat.
about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich…
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More from @MLiebreich see all

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Michael Liebreich
@MLiebreich
My latest for @BloombergNEF: "We need to talk about #nuclear power. And I mean really talk, in a truth-and-reconciliation, moving-forward kind of way, not a let’s-all-shout-slogans-at-each-other, my-tribe-versus-your-tribe kind of way."
about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich…
No plan to decarbonise the global economy can be considered credible if it does not deal explicitly with #nuclear power.
about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich…
Trigger warning: whether you are a lifelong anti-#nuclear campaigner or the technology’s most ardent fan, my latest piece for @BloombergNEF might make for uncomfortable reading:
about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich…
Read 7 tweets
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Michael Liebreich
@MLiebreich
A short thread on dematerialising the economy. In the late 1980s, I lugged a camera that looked like this on every trip. We don't need to talk about the fact that the flash and film had to be carried separately, and each photo had to be developed with nasty chemicals. Look at it!
I just tore down an old smart-phone for fun. Well, it got caught in the mechanism of the sofa-bed and snapped in half, so why not. My kids were fascinated. This is the camera.
Most of the time it takes better photos than my 1980s SLR - certainly in a more convenient format - I can send them to my mum from a mountain hut at 3000m. I'm guessing it weighs 1/1000th as much as the SLR. The flash is the size of a small lentil.
Read 10 tweets
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Michael Liebreich
@MLiebreich
@heatpolicyrich @nworbmot @FT Great question, long personal answer. After the dotcom bubble my career was bolloxed. I had worked to build lots of great businesses (many still around and successful today). At one point I was worth $30m on paper. But I lost 99% of it and ended up unemployed and unemployable. 1/
@heatpolicyrich @nworbmot @FT I couldn't get a job. Companies were deluged with resumes from dotcom refugees, and they raised the drawbridges. A first in engineering from Cambridge, Harvard MBA Baker Scholar, Olympic team, 10 good years at Deloitte, McKinsey & AP - and recruiters wouldn't answer my calls! 2/
@heatpolicyrich @nworbmot @FT I had been in venture capital with Groupe Arnault, but only for a couple of years. No VC would consider employing me either. And I had lost the self-confidence to start something myself. It was a very dark time. I was angry at the world and at myself, at risk of depression. 3/
Read 11 tweets

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Gretchen Goldman, PhD
@GretchenTG
Today Congress unveils a bill I'm really excited about. It holds companies accountable on climate change-related risk. This is a long time in the making. A THREAD:
In the Senate, the bill is led by @SenWarren: warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press…; in the House by @RepCasten: financialservices.house.gov/uploadedfiles/…; Today the House holds a hearing to talk about corporate climate risks and how the bill will help: financialservices.house.gov/calendar/event…
@SenWarren @RepCasten Companies (like the rest of us) face climate-related risks. The physical risks of climate change, plus the financial risks, legal risks, and reputational risks are all very real and very costly for companies.
Read 21 tweets
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Sheldon Whitehouse
@SenWhitehouse
Apple may want governments to move faster on #climate, but its presence here in Congress doesn’t contribute to that result.

A thread ⬇️ usatoday.com/story/tech/tal…
Leaving @USChamber was a good first step, but until recently, its other trade group @TechNetUpdate didn’t even name climate or clean energy as priorities.

Many other leading companies still support muscle-bound lobbying groups like the @USChamber and @ShopFloorNAM, which are inveterate opponents in Congress of climate action, often contrary to their members’ views.
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Kate Aronoff
@KateAronoff
Fossil fuel companies have spent $1 billion since the Paris Agreement was signed on greenwashing their image.

Lamar Alexander has taken $1.2 million from them, and his "Ten Grand Challenges" look an awful lot like that industry's greenwash wishlist.
The biggest fossil fuel industry players are multinational corporations. Formal climate denial has been largely a US phenomena, and one they're very happy with. But on the world stage they've long had a different approach than funding junk science and crackpot deniers
Industry representatives have been crawling over UN climate talks for years mucking it up. Organizers in the US have shifted the Overton window away from old school climate denial and that's great! What the industry has lined up next isn't any better, and arguably more dangerous
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Peter Gleick
@PeterGleick
1/3
 Dear Media, to avoid committing media malpractice, if you invite someone on your show to talk about #climate & they say:
"The climate has always changed."

You must immediately say "No, we understand all observed warming is now human caused, overwhelming any natural changes."
2/3
 If they say "It's cold out"
You must immediately say:
You're confusing "weather" and "climate." The world as a whole is warming. One cold day in one place doesn't disprove global climate science.
3/3
 If they say "The scientists are only in it for the money" you have two choices:

Say either "Scientists get paid far less than fossil fuel lobbyists & climate deniers, & whatever they're paid has no effect on the validity of the science."
Or call me for a "Fuck you" response.
Read 4 tweets
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Robert McNees
@mcnees
Rick Santorum gets paid to appear on these shows and lie about climate change. He is literally just accusing scientists of having his job.
It goes without saying that scientists -- climate or otherwise -- are not in it for "the money." Have you seen how we live?
We scientists have concocted a diabolical scheme to get "the money," and to throw everyone off our trail we followed a career path where we completely forego a meaningful salary or being able to save until our late 30s. It's a brilliant plan and soon "the money" will be ours.
Read 8 tweets
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Patrick Galey
@patrickgaley
Just returned from Bangkok, where nations made little progress towards finalising the Paris agreement on climate change that aims to limit global temperature rises over the next 80 years.

It was my first @UN #climate change rodeo and there were a few things I wasn't aware of
Under Paris, countries agreed to a fairly detailed set of promises to keep global temperature rises under 2C by 2100.

It was the first time all nations - both developed and developing economies - signed up to the same set of climate rules. But they weren't binding
Parties gave themselves in effect 3 years to come up with a text agreed by everyone, ratified, and translated into national law on a state-by-state basis. The idea is the accord isn't legally binding, but the rulebook it provides could be on a national level
Read 23 tweets

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