Learn the Facts
This page contains resources to help you learn more about key facts of the make polluters pay campaign. You can also find resources linking to the scientific background on climate change and fossil fuels, evidence detailing fossil fuel corporation's role in climate change, explanations of climate superfund bills in other states, and recent climate lawsuit updates.
Why Fossil Fuel Companies?
Primary Drivers of Climate Change
Major fossil fuel companies are the primary drivers of accelerated climate change, bringing with it more frequent, intense, and deadly extreme weather events. According to the International Energy Agency, fossil fuel corporations are responsible for 75% of total greenhouse gas emissions, and 93% of U.S. emissions.
Fueling Extreme Weather Events
Climate change is supercharging certain types of extreme weather. These lead to billion-dollar disasters, including more intense droughts, longer wildfire seasons, heavier rainfall events, and higher storm surges from sea level rise. Fossil fuel emissions are the primary driver of these changes.
Costing Us Billions
According to the U.S. government, the impacts of extreme climate events are costing the country an estimated $150 billion a year. One study shows that climate change is already costing US households more than $900 per year. Those costs are only expected to rise.
We're Left Footing the Bill
As it stands, we are paying higher prices at the pump, billions for climate disasters, and higher costs for electricity, home insurance, food, and healthcare – all so the industry can keep pulling in record profits. It’s time to level the playing field.
Resources
Big Oil Knew About Climate Change Since the 1950's. They Lied About It Anyway.
Big Oil Knew
Oil and gas companies have known for decades that their products posed “potentially catastrophic” risk to the climate — but instead of disclosing this knowledge, they chose to run a historic and ongoing campaign to deceive the public, protect their profits, and delay our transition to cleaner and cheaper energy.
Exxon
In the 1970s Exxon scientists first predicted the course of global temperature rise with striking accuracy.
Shell
In 1977 Shell co-funded and helped organize a workshop studying the impact of fossil fuels. The 491-page report that came out of the workshop predicted the deadly results of fossil fuel use, warning of “drastic economic consequences” and “severe stresses on human societies." Shell ignored this report and continued extracting and burning fossil fuels.
Recent reporting from the Guardian has traced fossil fuel cooperation’s knowledge of climate change back to 1954.
Their lies have cost us precious time and countless lives that we can never get back.
Resources
Revealed: Exxon made ‘breathtakingly’ accurate climate predictions in 1970s and 80s
Timeline of Big Oil Deception and Lobbying to Prevent Climate Action
Big Oil Is Still Raking In Record Breaking Profits
While communities pay with their lives and livelihoods for a climate crisis they did not cause, the oil and gas corporations continue reaping record shattering profits, and enriching their shareholders.
In the second quarter of 2024, major oil companies made staggering profits:
ExxonMobil: $70,513 per minute
Shell: $48,024 per minute
Chevron: $35,691 per minute
In 2023, oil company CEOs received substantial compensation packages:
ExxonMobil’s CEO, Darren Woods, received $36,919,898
Chevron’s CEO, Mike Wirth, received $26,489,856
Shell’s CEO, Wael Sawan, received £7,940,000 (approximately $10 million)
Resources
What is a Climate Superfund?
The idea of a climate superfund is simple: if you make a mess, you should pay to clean it up.
Based on traditional superfund laws, ‘climate superfunds’ would force the largest emitters to pay into a fund based on their fair share of emissions over an established period (often the last 30 years). Recovered costs can be used to support local communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis, as well as, economic and racial injustice.
Climate Disasters
The preliminary damage estimate for the 2025 atmospheric river in Washington, which caused catastrophic flooding, is estimated to be over $180 million — potentially the costliest disaster in four decades. Frontline, low-income and vulnerable communities were hit hardest, with some communities still recovering from severe flooding in 2021. Climate change will only increase the frequency and intensity of these disasters, including droughts, heat waves, severe storms, wildfires, and other extreme weather events.
Affordability
The climate crisis is an affordability crisis for households too, driving up home insurance, energy, healthcare and food costs. These costs are only expected to grow as temperatures rise, and the climate continues to destabilize. Washington is also facing a budget deficit, alongside the decreasing likelihood that the Federal Emergency Management Agency will help now or in the future.
Make Big Oil Pay
It is only fair that the billionaire oil and gas companies most responsible for the climate crisis pay their fair share for the massive damages their pollution has caused. Both Vermont and New York successfully passed Climate Superfund bills in 2024, setting a powerful precedent for Washington to join.
Resources
Why Superfund Won’t Raise Prices
The information below is taken from Fossil Free Media's Costs and Impact on Consumer Prices toolkit.
Global markets set oil and gas prices, not individual companies. Global prices do not reflect fixed fees based on the past behavior of the big oil companies. In addition, because there are many providers of gasoline, no single company can raise prices without losing customers to competitors.
Consumers are already paying 100% of climate damage costs through taxes, insurance premiums, and disaster recovery. The Climate Superfund shifts these existing costs from taxpayers to the big oil companies responsible for past emissions that helped supercharge the climate crisis and extreme weather events. It doesn’t increase the costs of producing and selling gasoline.
Understanding the Economics
Global Market Forces
As the American Petroleum Institute itself acknowledges, “Petroleum prices are determined by market forces of supply and demand, not individual companies.” Oil and gas prices are determined by worldwide supply and demand dynamics. No individual company — or even group of companies — can unilaterally control these global prices. Even OPEC, while they can influence global supply levels, cannot dictate prices in specific regions or for specific companies.
Competition Drives Pricing
If Company A tries to raise prices above market rates to cover their Superfund payments:
Customers will simply buy from Company B offering market prices
Company A loses market share and profits
This forces Company A to return to market prices regardless of their Climate Superfund obligations
Local Price Constraints
The price at your local gas pump is built from:
Global oil prices (roughly 60% of pump price)
Refining costs (about 15%)
Distribution and marketing (about 15%)
Taxes (about 10% *but differs state to state)
Superfund assessments don’t affect these components — they’re too small to impact global prices and too far upstream to affect local costs.
The Real Cost Dynamic
The fossil fuel industry’s claims about needing to pass costs to consumers become particularly hollow when examining their financial statements.
In the second quarter of 2024, major oil companies made staggering profits:
ExxonMobil: $70,513 per minute
Shell: $48,024 per minute
Chevron: $35,691 per minute
In 2023, oil company CEOs received substantial compensation packages:
ExxonMobil’s CEO, Darren Woods, received $36,919,898
Chevron’s CEO, Mike Wirth, received $26,489,856
Shell’s CEO, Wael Sawan, received £7,940,000 (approximately $10 million)
To put this into perspective:
Annual Climate Superfund payments would likely represent less than 1% of these companies’ profits
Companies spend more on stock buybacks than their projected Climate Superfund obligations
Executive compensation alone could cover significant portions of assessment payments
The annual payments required by Climate Superfund bills represent a small fraction of these massive profits. When companies are spending billions on stock buybacks and shareholder dividends, they clearly have the financial capacity to pay for some of the massive damage they’ve caused without raising consumer prices.
Historical Precedent
The original Superfund law (CERCLA) provides a clear historical example. When Congress passed CERCLA in 1980, industry groups claimed that making companies pay to clean up toxic waste sites would devastate the economy and drive up consumer prices. These predictions proved entirely false – companies have paid billions for cleanup without raising consumer prices because market competition prevents them from doing so. The same economic principles apply to climate damage payments.
Resources
Climate Superfund Toolkit: Costs and Impact on Consumer Prices
Nobel Laureate Professor Joseph Stiglitz video about NY's bill and letter to Gov. Hochul
State Climate Superfund and prices at the pump presentation
Climate Lawsuits
There is a growing movement across the globe to make polluters pay and demand climate accountability. These efforts (litigation) are complimentary but parallel to the legislative route of making polluters pay.
Lawsuits in the US
12 attorneys general in 11 states and D.C., plus dozens of communities from Hawai’i to Maine, are suing fossil fuel companies to hold them accountable for their deception and make them pay for the damage that they caused.
These cases represent nearly 30 percent of the American public.
Many of these cases are moving toward discovery and trial. Big Oil is panicking and doing whatever they can to escape accountability.
Lawsuits in Washington
Washington communities are fighting to hold Big Oil accountable for its climate deception through four active cases, including the first-ever climate-related wrongful death case against fossil fuel companies, two tribal climate deception cases, and a first-of-its-kind class action suit naming Big Oil’s role in fueling the escalating insurance crisis.