New Jersey latest state to sue oil companies over climate misinformation

Some two dozen climate liability suits have been making their way through the courts since 2015, bolstered by media investigations and attribution studies that are able to accurately pinpoint the precise contribution climate change has made to the damages inflicted by extreme weather events. A 2021 study in the journal Nature, for example, found that just over $8bn (£7bn) of the $62.7bn (£55.3bn) in damages caused by Superstorm Sandy across New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, is attributable to sea-level rise caused by climate change.

Like all of the previous cases, the New Jersey case will no doubt meet with various motions to dismiss from the fossil fuel defendants. So far, none of those arguments have worked, although lawyers for the city of Boulder, Colorado are waiting to see whether the supreme court will take up an appeal in that case.