PRESS RELEASE: “THE FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY IS ON TRIAL”
LAWYERS DEMONSTRATE WITH GIANT VIDEO PROJECTION IN NEW YORK HARBOUR AS PART OF CLIMATE WEEK 2024
EMBARGO: [6:00 PM Tuesday, September 24, 2024 EDT]
Manhattan, New York City
On Wednesday, 25 September, members of Law Students for Climate Accountability protested the climate impact of New York City’s legal and financial institutions releasing a 200 foot video projection in New York Harbour. The projection followed two light projection videos from other climate organizers calling for the passage of the Make Polluters Pay Act, as well as a Law Students for Climate Accountability walking tour of 6th Avenue highlighting six “Big Law” firms (A&O Shearman, Akin Gump, Baker Botts, King & Spalding, Latham & Watkins, and Paul, Weiss) and the fossil fuels work they engage in.
Organized in conjunction with Lawyers Are Responsible, the demonstration displayed key facts about the global impact of banks and law firms, many of which are headquartered in New York City. Law Students for Climate Accountability note that, in 2023 alone, law firms facilitated over $533 billion in fossil fuel transactions, and finance lent over $705 billion to fossil fuel companies [1]. Citing the International Energy Agency (IEA), they also note that fossil fuel companies have received $620 billion in government handouts worldwide [2].
The facts were accompanied by images from Submerged Portraits, a project by photographer Gideon Mendel that highlights the impact of the climate crisis on people’s everyday lives. In the photographs, Mendel captures the devastating impacts of floods in the US, as families stand in deep water in front of their waterlogged homes and businesses [3]. The striking images encourage us to question the direct link between fossil fuels, floods and the consequence to families not able to keep each other safe. As a result, legislators and activists are calling for prosecutors to pursue criminal charges against fossil fuel companies [4].
Flooding is one of the most widespread and dangerous impacts of climate change. The US government estimates that 164 million Americans – over half the population of the US – live in flood-prone coastal areas [5]. This includes much of New York City. New York Governor Kathy Hochul has warned that torrential downpours in New York, such as those in September 2023, should be considered a “new normal” due to the effects of the climate crisis [6].
We’ve heard all the defenses: IT’S TIME FOR LAWYERS TO ACT AND DROP FOSSIL FUELS
Law Students for Climate Accountability and Lawyers Are Responsible hope to energize fellow lawyers into changing their approach to fossil fuel work. In the demonstration, they challenged legal mantras such as “Everyone deserves representation” and “If it’s not me, someone else will do the work”. Signatories to Lawyers Are Responsible’s “Declaration of Conscience” pledge to refuse to support new fossil fuel projects [7]. Meanwhile, Law Students for Climate Accountability host a “Law Student Pledge” where signatories can commit to refusing to work for a law firm that represents fossil fuel industry clients.
PROJECTION VIDEO AND STILL IMAGES
No copyright, available for public reporting from this link https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/1012505650
No copyright, available for public reporting, 13/13 high res stills are available for reporting and download at this link https://www.lar.earth/new-york-demonstration-images examples at end of this text (low res.)
SOURCES
[1] Fossil Free Funds, https://fossilfreefunds.org/banks-insurance
[2] IEA, https://www.iea.org/topics/energy-subsidies
[3] Gideon Mendel, https://gideonmendel.com/submerged-portraits/
[4] the New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/12/climate/climate-lawsuits-major-cases.html
[5] NOAA, https://toolkit.climate.gov/topics/coastal-flood-risk/building-resilience-coastal-communities
[6] Reuters, https://www.reuters.com/world/us/new-york-citys-heavy-rain-is-new-normal-due-climate-change-governor-says-2023-09-30/
[7] LAR, https://www.lar.earth/sign/
QUOTES
Steven Donziger, US-based environmental lawyer said: “It is critical that people understand the often counterproductive role played by law firms in the United States in helping to block the transformational change needed to save the planet. Firms that continue to enrich themselves by working for climate deniers in the fossil fuel industry should be boycotted by law students and questioned by the rest of the legal profession. Profiting from planetary destruction is the worst kind of law.”
”Water doesn’t care if you’re a lawyer, a banker, or an insurance agent,” said Haley Czarnek, Law Student for Climate Accountability’s US National Director. “No matter how privileged you are, you still need drinkable water, clean air, consistent shelter, and a food supply. Attorneys have just as much at stake in the climate crisis as anyone else.”
Monika Sobiecki, UK-based media and privacy lawyer, member of Lawyers Are Responsible said: “The global death machine that is the fossil fuel industry can only keep running as it is because its wheels are oiled by the services provided by individual lawyers working at BigLaw firms. Those individual lawyers have a choice to make: contribute to unconscionable suffering, or drop fossil fuel projects.”
About Law Students for Climate Accountability
Law Students for Climate Accountability (https://www.ls4ca.org) is a student-led organization that seeks to amplify the roles and responsibilities of the legal industry in our current climate crisis. Since our formation in 2020, we have worked to build a movement; urging law students, lawyers, firms and stakeholders to ask questions, self-educate, and empower one another to forge a livable future.
Law Students for Climate Accountability activates and mobilizes the power of law students to transform the legal industry’s role from exacerbating climate injustice to meaningfully supporting a just transition. We aspire to move legal ethics and practice towards a just transition for our climate, in solidarity with frontline communities, to build an equitable and sustainable world in our lifetimes.
The Law Students for Climate Accountability Law Firm Climate Change Scorecard, which aims to measure the impact the legal industry has on the climate crisis, is available here: (https://www.ls4ca.org/scorecard).
About Lawyers Are Responsible
Lawyers Are Responsible (https://www.lar.earth) is a group of prominent lawyers taking action in solidarity with all those on the frontline of the climate and ecological crises, in particular the younger generations, the peoples of the global South and those prosecuted and imprisoned for peaceful acts of conscience.
Lawyers Are Responsible aims to align the legal system with planetary conditions that are liveable for current and future generations by:
(i) Delegitimising (whether through cultural, legal or regulatory means) legal and judicial support for acts which, according to the best available science, jeopardise the conditions which make the planet liveable; and
(ii) Legitimising the acts of those who peacefully resist such conduct.
PRESS QUERIES
Email: LawyersAR@protonmail.com
IMAGE SAMPLES
