New York officials call for big oil to be prosecuted for fueling climate disasters

An ExxonMobil refinery near Joliet, Illinois. In 1982, an official at the oil major issued an internal report that found the global heating tied to fossil fuel emissions could ‘cause flooding on much of the US east coast’. Photograph: Tannen Maury/EPA-EFE

New York state prosecutors could press criminal charges against big oil for its role in fueling hurricanes and other climate disasters, lawyers wrote in a new prosecution memorandum that has been endorsed by elected officials across the state.

The 50-page document, published by the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen and the progressive prosecutors network Fair and Just Prosecution on Thursday, comes as the US south-east struggles to recover from the deadly hurricanes Helene and Milton, both of which scientists have found were exacerbated by the climate crisis. It details the havoc wrought on New York by 2021’s Hurricane Ida and 2012’s Hurricane Sandy, and other deadly climate events such as extreme heatwaves across the US this past summer.