This week, the New York Times “climate desk” published a feature defending state-level climate lawsuits against energy producers. Before reading a single paragraph of their argument, it is worth pausing on two things: the desk it came from, and the sources it relies on.
The piece draws exclusively on two organizations — the Center for Climate Integrity and Climate Central — both of which exist specifically to fund, promote, and cheer on these exact lawsuits. That is not journalism. That is a press release with a dateline and a prestigious placement in the country’s top newspaper.
A Woman Who Needed Air Conditioning
Consider the case of Julie Leon. On June 28, 2021, the day of a massive heatwave that hit the Pacific Northwest, Leon, 65, died of heat exposure after leaving a medical appointment in Seattle. Her car’s air conditioning was not working. Her family has since filed a wrongful death lawsuit against ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, and ConocoPhillips, alleging that the oil giants are responsible for her death.
The cruel irony writes itself. Affordable, reliable energy — precisely the kind these companies produce — is what powers air conditioning. It is the technology that could have saved her life. In the upside-down logic of climate litigation, the solution becomes the defendant.
If Even Nuclear Power Is a Climate Villain…
The Leon case is not an outlier. In Carrboro, North Carolina, local officials sued Duke Energy for “climate-related harm” — targeting a utility whose nuclear fleet delivers zero-carbon electricity to half the homes in the Carolinas.
Duke Energy does not burn coal to power those homes. It splits atoms. If a company operating one of the largest zero-carbon energy fleets in the country can be hauled into court as a climate villain, then no energy producer anywhere is safe from this legal theory. That is, of course, the point.
Bad Science Laundered Into Law
The foundational problem with these lawsuits is not political, it’s logical. Climate change is a global phenomenon, produced by centuries of activity across billions of people, billions of decisions, and countless interacting variables.
Pinning legal liability for a single heatwave, flood, or wildfire on one specific company requires constructing a causal chain that no serious scientific body would endorse in a courtroom.
These suits do not establish causation. They manufacture it while they shop for a sympathetic venue. As I have written previously, this approach also implicates the rest of us. To whom does ExxonMobil sell its products? Consumers. Every heated home, every flight, every plastic item in a hospital. The logic of these lawsuits, taken seriously, ends with the customer in the dock alongside the company.
Why Energy Producers Need a Legal Safe Harbor
This is the argument for a legal safe harbor: it is a principled one, not a corporate favor. A safe harbor does not shield reckless conduct. It recognizes that legal liability requires a causally coherent defendant, and that no single energy company can serve as one for a planetary climate system built over centuries.
Federal legislation modeled on Section 230 would give courts a principled basis to dismiss manufactured claims before they extract billions in settlements.
States including Florida and Georgia have already moved in this direction. Congress should follow, and it now has a clearer picture of why, given how coordinated and well-funded this litigation campaign truly is.
The Bill Lands on Consumers
The New York Times and its activist sources ignore the inflation question entirely. Every dollar an energy company spends defending against climate litigation is a dollar not invested in production, infrastructure, or cleaner technology. Those costs flow downstream, directly onto utility bills and prices at the pump.
Climate lawfare does not lower emissions. It raises prices for working families already stretched by the broader cost of living.
Follow the Money
These lawsuits are not spontaneous expressions of civic outrage. They are the product of a coordinated, well-funded campaign. Bloomberg Philanthropies bankrolled the State Energy & Environmental Impact Center at NYU Law, which trained state attorneys general to pursue climate liability cases against energy producers.
The explicit goal, in the words of some advocates, is all about bankrupting the fossil fuel industry.
Congress launched a formal investigation into this funding network in early 2025. The Times did not mention it.
The Recap
So let us take stock. A nuclear power company that heats half the Carolinas with zero-carbon energy is a climate defendant. A woman who needed air conditioning is proof that oil companies owe wrongful death damages. And the paper of record’s sources for all of it are the groups filing the suits.
You cannot litigate your way to a stable climate. But you can litigate your way to higher energy bills. In 2026, that appears to be the plan.