Survivors of deadly LA wildfires demand accountability for Big Oil’s role in fueling climate disasters

Victims, scientists, and legal experts unite to hold fossil fuel companies criminally responsible.

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Quick summary

• Survivors of the deadly LA wildfires demand criminal accountability for Big Oil, arguing that fossil fuel companies knowingly worsened the climate crisis.

• Victims shared personal stories of loss, including destroyed homes, irreplaceable family heirlooms, and community landmarks.

• Scientists emphasized the link between increased wildfire severity and decades of fossil fuel emissions, compounded by industry efforts to block climate solutions.

• A proposed climate super-fund bill in California would require major fossil fuel polluters to pay a share of their profits to address climate damages and adaptation efforts.

• Legal experts argue that Big Oil’s actions meet the legal definition of recklessness and could lead to criminal charges, including manslaughter for deaths caused by fires.

• Fossil fuel companies have faced civil lawsuits across the U.S., with recent legal victories allowing climate accountability cases to move forward.

• Advocates stress the urgency of action to prevent future climate disasters, hold corporate polluters accountable, and shift toward sustainable energy solutions.

As deadly wildfires continue to devastate large swaths of Los Angeles County, survivors, scientists, and legal experts gathered at a press conference to demand accountability from the fossil fuel industry. They argue that the climate crisis, intensified by Big Oil’s actions, has turned natural disasters into crimes against humanity.

“The disasters we are seeing today are not natural. They are crimes,” said Danielle Levanas, who grew up in Pacific Palisades and lost her parents’ home to the Palisades Fire. “My elementary and middle school, our rec center, our library, the local community theater, the banks, the post office where we voted, the grocery stores, our favorite restaurants—they have all been taken out.”

Levanas shared the deeply personal losses her family has faced, describing cherished items that can never be replaced. “How do you communicate the value of your deceased mom’s journal from 1981, when she was pregnant with you, or the textiles you collected when you worked in West Africa in your mid-20s, or the boxes of home videos carefully labeled and organized, but not yet digitized, that captured moments with your family you had hoped to one day share with your own kids?” she asked. “Losing that house in some ways feels like losing my mom all over again.”

Survivors argue that while wildfires are a natural occurrence, their intensity and frequency have been exacerbated by climate change, a crisis driven by decades of fossil fuel emissions. Sam James, a 24-year-old resident of Santa Monica, witnessed the Palisades Fire rage from her window. Her family’s roots in Altadena, where the Eaton Fire destroyed her grandfather’s home, span back to 1890.

“Our roots in Altadena and Pasadena go back to at least 1890, with a legacy of building opportunities for Black generational wealth primarily through home ownership,” James explained. “Much of this progress has been destroyed by recent wildfires including the Eaton Fire.”

James directly called out Big Oil for its role in worsening climate disasters. “While we always understood the risks of living in this area, the severity of these fires has escalated dramatically due to climate change and the actions of Big Oil companies that have exacerbated this crisis,” she said. “Their reckless pollution and disregard for the environmental impact have directly contributed to climate change and the intensification of natural disasters like these wildfires. They must take responsibility for the harm that they’ve caused, pay reparations to the affected communities… and take immediate steps to mitigate further damage.”

She added, “The science is clear. We’ve seen the writing on the walls. Climate change is here, and it’s only getting worse. Our communities cannot continue to bear the physical and emotional toll of this crisis caused by the actions of a powerful few. It’s time for Big Oil to be held accountable and take real, measurable steps toward a more sustainable future.”

Kristina Dahl, vice president of science at Climate Central, emphasized the influence of the fossil fuel industry in stalling meaningful action. “We are up against a very deep-pocketed fossil fuel industry that has made it very difficult to address the crisis,” she said.

Dahl pointed out that while California has held corporations accountable for their role in wildfires, much of the financial burden still falls on taxpayers and ratepayers. “The companies that are shaping the conditions under which these fires are occurring are largely let off the hook,” she explained.

Maya Golden-Krasner, deputy director and senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, highlighted the astronomical costs of wildfires. “Having inflicted as much as—or maybe more than—$250 billion in damages, the LA fires already rank as one of the worst disasters in U.S. history,” she said. “Yet the fossil fuel polluters who rake in massive profits and have created the conditions for the fires, the floods, and the other disasters have faced no responsibility to pay for the consequences, and that leaves the rest of us stuck with the multi-billion-dollar tab.”

Golden-Krasner is championing a climate super-fund bill modeled on federal hazardous waste laws and California’s Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Act. The proposed legislation would require the largest fossil fuel polluters to pay a share of their profits to address climate damages and help communities adapt to future disasters. “That’s why we need our own climate super-fund bill, to put billions of dollars in climate costs back on corporate polluters where they belong,” she said.

Although details about the bill’s sponsors remain undisclosed, Golden-Krasner revealed it would likely be introduced within days. “Please stay tuned for that,” she said, noting that previous attempts faced significant opposition from the fossil fuel industry. “There was a bill last session that made it through three committees in 60 days and the fossil fuel industry pushed really hard against it. So we’re hoping that this year folks will come out and support it and we’ll be able to pass it.”

Aaron Regunberg, director of the Public Citizen Climate Program Accountability Project, underscored the legal grounds for holding fossil fuel companies accountable. “The climate effects driving these fires are the direct and foreseeable—and in fact foreseen—consequences of the actions of a small number of fossil fuel companies that knowingly generated a huge portion of all the greenhouse gases that caused this crisis and fraudulently deceived the public about the dangers of their products specifically in order to block and delay the very solutions that could have avoided these catastrophes,” he said.

“What’s more, they did all of this with full knowledge of just how lethal their conduct really was, having long predicted that the continued burning of their fossil fuel products would cause, in their own words, ‘catastrophic’ climate harms,” he continued. Regunberg argued that this conduct meets the legal definition of recklessness, which he explained as “consciously disregarding a substantial risk of causing harm to another person.”

He further called for justice through the criminal justice system: “The victims and survivors of climate disasters deserve justice, and fortunately we have mechanisms to give it to them. We have the civil justice system, which is designed to repair harms and compensate those who have been injured… And we also have the criminal justice system, which is designed to protect citizens from harm and hold wrongdoers accountable.”

To understand how climate change has become a key factor in wildfires, follow the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions.

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