Big Oil Faces Wave of Climate Lawsuits from U.S. States and Territories

By Felicity Bradstock - Jan 18, 2025

Hawaii, Alaska, and Puerto Rico are leading the charge with lawsuits against Big Oil and the U.S. government over climate change damages.

These lawsuits challenge oil companies' deceptive practices and government inaction on climate change.

State-level legal action is gaining momentum and could reshape the landscape of climate litigation in the U.S.



Hawaii, Alaska, and Puerto Rico are some of the U.S. states and territories most affected by climate change, and they have all launched lawsuits against either the U.S. government or oil companies over the last year due to climate change challenges. This month, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected appeals from several oil companies attempting to quash a lawsuit from Hawaii that aims to hold firms accountable for climate change. The oil firms in question say that climate change is a federal issue and should, therefore, not be addressed at the state level. The municipality of Honolulu is now permitted to continue with its lawsuit against several oil firms, including Sunoco, Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP and 10 other companies, according to Hawaii state law.

The lawsuit focuses on what the claimants call “deceptive marketing and public statements” by oil companies. In 2020, the city and county of Honolulu and the Honolulu Board of Water Supply sued oil firms on the grounds that they violated state law for creating a public nuisance and failing to warn the public about the risks posed by their products. The Hawaii Supreme Court approved the lawsuit in 2023 saying that because it “does not seek to regulate emissions and does not seek damages for interstate emissions,” it does not fall under federal law.

In response to the Supreme Court decision, Ben Sullivan, the executive director and chief resilience officer for the city and county of Honolulu’s office of climate change, sustainability and resiliency, stated, “This landmark decision upholds our right to enforce Hawaii laws in Hawaii courts, ensuring the protection of Hawaii taxpayers and communities from the immense costs and consequences of the climate crisis caused by the defendants’ misconduct.”

In response, Ryan Meyers, a spokesperson for the American Petroleum Institute, said, “This ongoing, coordinated campaign to wage meritless lawsuits against companies providing affordable, reliable and cleaner energy is nothing more than a distraction from these important issues and waste of taxpayer resources.”

The U.S. Supreme Court has also seen legal action from the oil-rich state of Alaska, which is under severe threat of climate change. In 2024, a group of eight young Alaskans between the ages of 11 and 22 brought a lawsuit against the government claiming a new fossil fuel project violated their state constitutional rights. The lawsuit was filed by the non-profit organisation Our Children’s Trust. The rights in question are the right to protected natural resources for “current and future generations” and the right to be free from government infringement on life, liberty and property.

State-owned Alaska Gasline Development Corporation has proposed a $38.7 billion gas export project, which is expected to triple Alaska’s greenhouse gas emissions for several decades if approved, according to the lawsuit. The project includes the development of a gas treatment plant on Alaska’s North Slope and an 800-mile pipeline and liquefaction plant on the Kenai Peninsula to export LNG to Asia.

The lawsuit states that global warming is negatively affecting Native Alaskan youth by “interfering with their natural development, disrupting their cultural traditions and identities, and limiting their access to the natural resources on which they rely”. Some of the risks of climate change in the regions in question include climate-induced flooding, rapid permafrost thawing, and severe coastal erosion.

Earlier in 2024, Montana’s supreme court upheld a milestone decision in a legal case filed by Our Children’s Trust that required state regulators to consider the climate crisis before approving permits for new oil and gas projects. That case has since been appealed and is waiting for a verdict, pending a court case in July.

Also in 2024, Puerto Rico filed a $1 billion climate lawsuit against oil companies. The lawsuit accuses oil and gas companies of continuing to promote their products using unfair and deceptive trade practices when they knew they would pollute the island and contribute to warming temperatures. The lawsuit says that the firms failed to give warnings about the environmental risks linked with fossil fuel production. Exxon Mobil, BP and Chevron are some of the companies involved in the legal case.

Justice Secretary Domingo Emanuelli Hernández said when announcing the lawsuit, “These companies have known internally for decades that greenhouse gas pollution from fossil fuel products would have adverse impacts on the global climate and sea levels.”


Over two dozen U.S. cities, counties, and states are currently seeking compensation for the effects of climate change. Several non-profit organisations and state actors have launched lawsuits to bring awareness to the issue of climate change and accuse fossil fuel companies of directly exacerbating the problem through their actions. Depending on the outcomes of these lawsuits, it could set the precedent for future legal action to be taken at the state, rather than the federal, level.

By Felicity Bradstock for Oilprice.com