Column: Hawaii holds oil companies accountable

Hawaii’s communities are on the front lines of the climate crisis, fighting to protect ourselves from crumbling coastlines, drought and rain bombs being fueled by carbon pollution. The billions of dollars it will cost to protect our communities from climate impacts are currently falling on our taxpayers rather than on the fossil fuel corporations that knowingly created the climate crisis in the first place.

Now — thanks to a ruling last week by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit — Oahu and Maui County are also on the judicial front lines to ensure that Big Oil, whose denial and disinformation led to this climate crisis, pays its fair share.

Major oil and gas companies like ExxonMobil knew decades ago that sustained use of their fossil fuel products would pose a “potentially catastrophic” risk to communities like ours. As recently detailed in the PBS “Frontline” series, “The Power of Big Oil,” the oil and gas industry made a deliberate choice to deceive the public and elected officials for decades about the science and severity of climate change.

This disinformation campaign undermined our ability to transition to cleaner energy sources to avoid disaster. Like Big Tobacco, they lied so that they could continue selling their dangerous products and rake in profits. In fact, Shell Oil Co. alone made over $9 billion in profit in the first three months of 2022 — while we continue to shell out millions for disaster recovery.

In 2020, Oahu and Maui County took action. We filed suit to hold some of the largest fossil fuel polluters in the world — including Exxon, Chevron, BP and Shell — accountable for their climate deception and to ensure that Hawaii taxpayers weren’t left alone to protect their homes, businesses and infrastructure from the impacts of climate change.

Thanks to the continued determination of our legal teams, a string of victories in state court and this federal court decision rejecting the fossil fuel industry’s last-ditch efforts to deny the people of Oahu and Maui County our rightful day in state court, there is hope. After years of battling Big Oil’s efforts to escape accountability in the courts, we are now poised to become the first community in the nation to finally put major fossil fuel polluters on trial.

The oil companies have fought against our case relentlessly because they fear additional evidence of their misconduct will be revealed during an open trial. They also know that if we are successful, they will be held liable for their behavior. The state has estimated that sea-level rise alone threatens to displace as many as 20,000 Hawaii residents and destroy an estimated $19 billion in property. In fact, a single infrastructure project on Maui — relocating the Honoapiilani Highway mauka — will cost up to $90 million.

It is the definition of injustice for our taxpayers and residents to shoulder these climate costs while the corporations who actually caused them, pocket record profits, reward shareholders and contribute nothing while the Earth overheats.

The challenges posed by climate change are vast and complicated. Hawaii will continue to do everything it can to rapidly transition away from fossil fuels, invest in clean renewable energy, and protect the health and well-being of our residents. At the same time, Oahu and Maui County now have an historic opportunity to make Big Oil answer for the damage it willfully brought to our shores.

Just as tobacco and opioid companies left a trail of destruction and finally faced the consequences of their deception in court, it’s now Big Oil’s turn. More than 20 other states and municipalities have now filed similar climate accountability lawsuits, but the tide of history has brought our frontline islands the chance to put these polluters on trial first. Once we are finally able to present the facts to a jury, we are confident that we will win — and set an example for justice and corporate accountability for communities across the country.

Tommy Waters is Honolulu City Council chairman; Keani Rawlins-Fernandez is Maui County Council vice chairwoman.