New York to fine fossil fuel companies $75 billion over climate damage

New York will fine fossil fuel companies a total of $75 billion over the next 25 years to pay for climate damage, under legislation signed into law by Governor Kathy Hochul on Thursday.

The law aims to shift some of the costs of adapting to climate change from individual taxpayers to the oil, gas and coal companies that the law says are responsible.

Under the law, the state will spend the money it raises on climate change mitigation, including upgrading roads, water and sewer systems, buildings and other infrastructure, according to Reuters.

“New York has fired a shot that will be heard around the world: It will hold the companies most responsible for the climate crisis accountable,” New York State Senator Liz Krueger, a Democrat who co-authored the legislation, said in a statement.

Kruger said in her statement that repairing damage and adapting to extreme weather caused by climate change will cost New York more than $500 billion by 2050, adding that Big Oil has made more than $1 trillion in profits since January 2021 and has known since at least the 1970s that extracting and burning fossil fuels contributes to climate change.

Fossil fuel companies would be fined based on the amount of greenhouse gases they emitted into the atmosphere between 2000 and 2018, with the money to be paid into the Climate Superfund starting in 2028. This would apply to any company identified by the New York Department of Environmental Conservation as responsible for more than 1 billion tons of global greenhouse gas emissions.

New York becomes the second state to pass such a law after Vermont passed its own version this summer. The laws are modeled on state rules that require polluters to pay to clean up toxic waste.