New climate paper calls for charging big US oil firms with homicide

The paper is rooted in part in the growing body of evidence fossil fuel companies knew of the harm their products caused and misled the public about them.

Braman argued that pursuing homicide charges would have a greater impact on fossil fuel companies than the cases currently wending their way through court in part because the penalties would be steeper. Rather than paying a fine, homicide charges could open up an array of other outcomes that could materially alter how companies operate.

Bringing homicide charges against oil companies for deaths caused by the climate crisis would be unprecedented, but corporations have been tried for homicide before. California prosecutors charged the utility PG&E with manslaughter for its role in the deadly Camp Fire that leveled the town of Paradise in 2018. And federal prosecutors charged BP with manslaughter following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster. In both cases, the companies pleaded guilty and paid billions in fines and penalties.

While there may be a theoretical case for climate homicide, the realities are daunting. First, a district attorney or attorney general office that has jurisdiction in a place where climate change has caused deaths would have to be willing to bring charges. And that office would need significant resources to confront influential billion-dollar corporations.

Kutz said another challenge facing any would-be prosecutions is the central role fossil fuels have played in shaping the modern world.

Binder hypothesized that multiple companies could be charged collectively, though it would still be a very challenging case to bring about. As an analog, he noted that there have been cases in which multiple street drag racers have been charged with homicide, though only of them was physically responsible for killing someone, because they all competed in a race that resulted in a death.

The authors go so far as to recommend a particular sentence should fossil fuel firms be found guilty of homicide: restructuring them as public benefit corporations, similar to what happened to Purdue Pharma as part of its settlement for contributing to the opioid crisis. Doing so, they argue, would allow for rapidly winding down fossil fuel production to reduce further climate harm while ramping up investments in clean energy and protecting workers and communities tied to fossil fuel companies.