Microsoft has joined a conservative-led group that demands fossil fuel companies be granted legal immunity from attempts to claw back damages from the climate change they helped cause.
The stated goals of the Climate Leadership Council (CLC) include a $40-a-ton fee on carbon dioxide emissions in return for the gutting of current climate change regulations and “protecting companies from federal and state tort liability for historic emissions”.
Microsoft has become the first technology company to join the CLC, which includes oil giants BP, ExxonMobil, Shell, Total and ConocoPhillips among its founding members. Handing legal immunity to these oil companies would squash a cavalcade of recent climate lawsuits launched by cities and counties across the US, including one by King county, Washington, where Microsoft is based. Facing rising costs from sea level rise, storms and heatwaves, a growing band of elected officials from across the US have turned to the courts to force fossil fuel producers to pay compensation to ameliorate the escalating damages. Many of these claims point out that firms like Exxon privately knew of the consequences of climate change for at least 40 years, long before it was a public issue, only to deny the problem and block meaningful action to address it.
This raft of legal action – waged by places including Rhode Island, San Francisco and Baltimore – would be nullified under the CLC plan, which was drawn up by veteran Republicans James Baker and George Shultz, both former secretaries of state, and backed by former Federal Reserve chairs Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen.
Citing the need for a “much-needed bipartisan climate breakthrough”, the CLC is lobbying Congress for a gradually rising tax on CO2 emissions, with the proceeds returned directly to Americans. Under the plan, this would enable regulations on coal-fired power plants to be scrapped and fossil fuel companies to be legally inoculated from any legal ramifications...
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