New York state will fine fossil fuel companies $75 billion over the next 25 years to offset climate damage, under a bill that Gov. Kathy Hochul signed into law Thursday.
This law aims to shift some of the costs of recovery and adaptation to climate change from individual taxpayers to the oil, gas and coal companies that the law says are responsible. The money raised will be spent on mitigating the effects of climate change, including adapting roads, public transport, water and wastewater systems, buildings and other infrastructure.
“New York has fired a shot that will be heard around the world: The companies most responsible for the climate crisis will be held accountable,” Democratic Senator Liz Krueger, who co-sponsored the bill, said in a statement. .
Fossil fuel companies will be fined based on the amount of greenhouse gases they released into the atmosphere between 2000 and 2018, which will be paid into a climate superfund from 2028. The law will apply to any company that, according to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, is responsible for more than 1 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions greenhouses in the world.
New York becomes the second state to pass such a law after Vermont, which passed its own version this summer. These laws build on existing federal and state emergency fund laws, which require polluters to pay to clean up toxic waste.
Repairing damage and adapting to extreme weather caused by climate change will cost New York more than $500 billion by 2050, Krueger said in her statement. Big oil companies have made more than $1 trillion in profits since January 2021 and have known since at least the 1970s that the extraction and burning of fossil fuels contributes to climate change.
Energy companies are expected to legally challenge the new law, arguing that it is replaced by a federal law regulating energy companies and polluters.
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