Flooding in Chicago on July 6, 2023. (WTTW News)

The city of Chicago has filed suit against six oil and gas corporations, claiming they’ve deceived local consumers about the companies’ products’ role in causing climate change.

Mayor Brandon Johnson announced the lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Cook County Circuit Court, against BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil, Phillips 66, Shell and their largest trade association, the American Petroleum Institute.

“There is no justice without accountability,” Johnson said in a statement. “From the unprecedented poor air quality that we experienced last summer to the basement floodings that our residents on the West Side experienced, the consequences of this crisis are severe, as are the costs of surviving them. That is why we are seeking to hold these Defendants accountable.”

According to the city, the nearly 200-page complaint alleges numerous climate change-related damages Chicago has incurred, and will continue to incur, because of the companies’ conduct.

Through the lawsuit, the city is seeking relief including compensatory and loss-of-use damages, penalties and fines for statutory violations, as well as an instruction banning the companies from engaging in the deceptive and unfair acts and practices.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, other cities and states including New York and California have filed similar suits in an effort to try to recoup potentially billions of dollars in damages blamed on the burning of fossil fuels, such as oil and natural gas.

“These companies knowingly deceived Chicago consumers in their endless pursuit of profits,” Ald. Matt Martin (47th Ward) said in a statement. “As a result of their conduct, Chicago is enduring extreme heat and precipitation, flooding, sewage flows into Lake Michigan, damage to city infrastructure, and more. That all comes with enormous costs. But both the facts, and the law, are on our side, and we intend to shift those costs back where they belong: on the companies whose deceptive conduct brought us the climate crisis.”

Theodore J. Boutrous, Jr. of Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher, counsel for Chevron Corporation, said in a statement that addressing “climate change requires a coordinated international policy response, not meritless local litigation over lawful and essential energy production.”

“As the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held in dismissing a similar New York City lawsuit, ‘such a sprawling case is simply beyond the limits of state law.’” he said.

In a statement, API general counsel and Senior Vice President Ryan Meyers said that over the past two decades, the oil and gas industry has worked to reduce emissions and its environmental footprint. He claimed climate policy “is for Congress to debate and decide, not a patchwork of city halls and courts.”

“This ongoing, coordinated campaign to wage meritless, politicized lawsuits against a foundational American industry and its workers is nothing more than a distraction from important national conversations and an enormous waste of taxpayer resources,” Meyers said.