Dozens of climate activists rallied outside the New York County Supreme Court Tuesday to support state Attorney General Letitia James on the first day of a nationally watched case that aims to hold ExxonMobil accountable for defrauding investors about the business risks of continuing to burn fossil fuels.

“This is Big Oil’s Big Tobacco moment. And a warning for Big Polluters across the globe and the industries that continue to enable them in fueling the climate crisis.”
—Sriram Madhusoodanan, Corporate Accountability

Supporters of the People of New York v. ExxonMobil trial, which is expected to last three weeks, carried a 100-foot long banner that read, “Climate Crisis / #ExxonKnew / Make Them Pay.“

“We’re here today in solidarity with Attorney General James, honoring all the Black women, people of color, and frontline communities fighting relentlessly for climate justice,” Dominique Thomas, a New Yorker and Northeast field organizer for the environmental group 350.org, said in a statement.

“The likes of Exxon have put us on a first name with climate chaos: Sandy, Maria, Katrina, Paradise lost. The list goes on and on,” Thomas added. “It’s time to make them pay for their destruction.”

James’ predecessor Barbara Underwood filed suit against ExxonMobil in October of 2018, after New York state investigated the fossil fuel giant for more than three years. The lawsuit accuses (pdf) the company of engaging in a “longstanding fraudulent scheme” to deceive investors “concerning the company’s management of the risks posed to its business by climate change.” 

Although the case isn’t directly about ExxonMobil’s contributions to the human-caused climate crisis, the state’s investigation—launched by Underwood’s predecessor Eric Schneiderman—became public in 2015, shortly after the Los Angeles Times and InsideClimate News published explosive reports detailing the company’s decades of “manufacturing doubt about the scientific consensus that its own scientists had confirmed.”

“Corporate deception regarding the impact of fossil fuels on the planet is a matter of life or death,” Adelynne Dadivas, environmental coordinator for NYPIRG, said Tuesday. “Harm to investors is one small part of the gross harm being caused, which generations to come will have to pay for.  We support Attorney General Letitia James and her efforts to hold Exxon accountable for decades of attacks on the science and deception peddled to the public.”

ExxonMobil, The New York Times reported Tuesday, “has vigorously fought the charges, arguing that they were politically motivated and should have been thrown out; the company maintains that the government’s theory of its financial tools is flawed at best and, at worst, disingenuous.”

Kathy Mulvey, fossil fuel accountability campaign director at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said that “ExxonMobil pulled out all the stops in an effort to keep this trial from reaching the courtroom, and used its vast legal and financial resources to attempt to intimidate community leaders, elected officials, and advocacy groups.”