Climate Fake News Penalties May Cost Billions
A UN expert wants people who spread fake climate news, along with large oil companies that use lobbyists to influence fossil fuel regulations, to be punished with extraordinary penalties, which would include significant fines. These could range into billions of dollars.
Elisa Morgera released a research paper titled “The imperative of defossilizing our economies” to the UN General Assembly. It contains a section called “The playbook of climate obstruction.”
In advance, she reviews the extensive list of data on climate change and its causes. Most of these are part of 1) government regulations that overlook climate impact, and 2) deliberate cover-ups by the most prominent companies that also benefit from lax regulation. Fossil fuel companies, in particular, have played a significant role in shaping and influencing the passage of these laws. Additionally, some of the media, she adds, have helped spread the damaging lies.
Suits By States
Morgera’s case is part of a larger effort by non-profits, states, and cities. Many have sued fossil fuel companies for damage from their greenhouse gas emissions. These cases claim that the actions of these corporations have been sinister. Most people were aware of the harm to the climate decades ago, but kept that information confidential. These suits are similar to the Big Tobacco lawsuits brought by state attorneys general in the 1990s.
Morgera also draws a picture of how the disinformation system has worked “Knowledge of the catastrophic effects of fossil fuel-induced climate change can be traced back to at least the 1960s. Instead of acting on this knowledge to prevent harm, fossil fuel companies have counterfeited climate science, buying credibility for fossil fuel-influenced research through university affiliations, while intimidating independent climate scientists and manufacturing doubts regarding their science.”
Finally, to change corporate behavior, she calls for “strict financial penalties.” These measures would include wealth taxes, the creation of climate superfunds, stricter regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, enhanced monitoring of these regulations, and compensation for losses and damages resulting from their business practices.
List Of Penalties
If Morgera ‘s penalty system mirrors those brought by states and cities, it would reach the tens or perhaps hundreds of billions of dollars. The fines from the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) reached $206 billion in 1998
Although Morgera’s plans provide a potential roadmap for preventing the widespread dissemination of disinformation about climate change, they face significant challenges. If the oil companies are as powerful as Morgera claims, it will take decades for the suits to work their way through the court system. In addition, the disinformation about climate change has now moved to social media, making it impossible to locate the source of this false information and combat it. However, Morgera and other climate activists must continue their work to help save the planet.
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