About 20 oil companies sued by the city two years ago in an effort to have them pay for climate change impacts on Oahu are advancing their defense in the already drawn-out litigation.

Defendants in the state court case filed initial answers Monday denying allegations made by the city and the Honolulu Board of Water Supply that include the contention that the companies concealed and obscured information about environmental harm from their products in part by backing climate change science denial work.

Three affiliates of Shell Group suggest it is disingenuous for the city to claim that the company, which has produced energy globally for over a century, withheld information about the dangers of its product.

“History belies plaintiffs’ assertion that there was a failure to warn or misrepresentation, or that plaintiffs were somehow unaware of the relationship between the combustion of fossil fuels and climate change,” Shell said in its filing.

Shell said scientific study of climate change dates to the 1800s, has been discussed by the company for more than 30 years and has been the subject of media reports and government policy debate for many decades. “It was far from hidden or unknown as plaintiffs claim,” Shell said in its filing.

Shell also said in its response that reducing carbon emission levels and generally tackling climate change will take “unprecedented levels of collaboration and cooperation across all sectors of society” and won’t be achieved through the city’s lawsuit.

“Rather than seeking real solutions to climate change and emission reductions, plaintiffs instead resort to the judicial system and wrongly seek to hold defendants — a select few energy companies — responsible for the alleged local effects of global climate change from the global use of fossil fuel products,” Shell said in its filing refuting claims by the city.

Chevron Corp. and Chevron U.S.A. Inc. made similar arguments and noted that federal and local governments have long made energy policy decisions with knowledge of climate change impacts. “Plaintiffs’ complaint tries to construct a narrative that oil and gas companies had some unique knowledge about climate science and withheld it or misrepresented it in some way that impacted policy responses and consumer choices,” Chevron said in its response. “That narrative is false.”

Additionally, the company’s response said, “The Chevron defendants recognize and acknowledge that climate change is a serious issue that warrants serious and meaningful national and international action. Indeed, the Chevron defendants support and are actively working towards today’s energy transition, while recognizing that oil and gas remain essential for people and economies around the world. Litigation funded and fueled by activists and special interests, however, is not a useful or proper way to address the problem.”

All other defendants — including Aloha Petroleum, the former BHP Hawaii, Exxon Mobil, Phillips 66, ConocoPhillips, BP, Sunoco, Marathon Petroleum and affiliated companies — largely offered general denials to allegations of wrongdoing without detailed arguments.

Nearly all the defendants contend that the city lacks standing to bring all or some of its claims because many alleged injuries have not yet occurred and might never occur.

The city alleges that global warming has and will cause higher instances of flooding, erosion, beach loss, hurricanes, drought, heat waves, marine life loss, invasive species growth, freshwater supply reductions and other harm.

No sum of monetary damages is specified in the lawsuit, but city representatives have previously said negative impacts to property are in the billions of dollars. The city’s complaint also notes that the Board of Water Supply estimates it will likely cost over $100 million to develop two desalination plants on Oahu for climate resilience.

Matt Gonser, chief resilience officer of Honolulu’s Office of Climate Change, Sustainability and Resiliency, in a statement criticized Chevron’s 165-page written answer filled with national and local newspaper clippings including a front-page 1983 Honolulu Star-Bulletin story with the headline “Use of Fossil Fuels Endangering Man.”

“In more than 100 pages of examples of others talking about the climate change dangers associated with burning fossil fuel products, there is not one single example of Chevron warning its own customers here in Hawaii about those dangers,” Gonser said.

The lawsuit was filed in March 2020 under the administration of then-Mayor Kirk Caldwell, and is now backed by Mayor Rick Blangiardi, who has previously said his administration looks forward to “continuing the fight for the community throughout the entire process.”

Earlier skirmishes in the case included an unsuccessful attempt by Chevron to have the litigation moved to federal court, and unsuccessful motions to have the complaint dismissed on technical grounds.

The city is represented by its own corporation counsel and San Francisco-based law firm Sher Edling LLC, which is involved in similar litigation on behalf of six states and about a dozen cities or counties on the mainland as well as a case filed by Maui County in October 2020.