{"id":380041,"date":"2026-04-15T03:40:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T03:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/380041\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T03:40:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T03:40:10","slug":"california-should-make-big-oil-pay-for-the-costs-of-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/380041\/","title":{"rendered":"California should make Big Oil pay for the costs of climate change"},"content":{"rendered":"

Climate change is sticking California with a multibillion-dollar bill, and right now, everyday families are the ones being asked to pick up the tab through higher taxes, electricity costs and insurance premiums.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the oil companies whose products are driving the climate crisis continue to profit while making it worse.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Completely absent from the 107-page report is any mention of large oil and gas corporations, which are substantially responsible for the warming climate driving California\u2019s wildfires, but not paying a cent of the financial costs.<\/p>\n

Like the rest of the world, California is now living with the consequences of their deception. Climate change\u00a0\u2014 driven by fossil fuels\u00a0\u2014 has turned our state into a tinderbox.<\/p>\n

Southern California Edison\u2019s equipment may have ignited the Eaton Fire in Altadena, but acres of dry kindling due to abnormally hot and dry weather provided the abundant fuel that helped turn it and the Palisades Fire into the most expensive wildfire disaster in global history<\/a>. Climate scientists looked at the climatic conditions behind the fires and concluded that fossil fuel-driven climate change made the disaster 35% more likely<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While Big Oil continues to escape accountability for its role in these disasters, its share of the costs is being passed onto the public, with climbing utility and insurance rates as a result of rising costs associated with wildfire mitigation and losses.<\/p>\n

Insurers, who are paying out $40 billion in claims from the L.A. wildfires, are scaling back coverage in many communities and leaving homeowners to the state\u2019s insurer of last resort program (the FAIR Plan), which offers substandard coverage at higher rates. A shocking 1 in 5 California homeowners<\/a> are now going without insurance \u2014 risking financial ruin after the next major wildfire. Those who do have insurance are finding themselves in years-long battles with insurers to get their claims paid, which is physically, emotionally and financially exhausting for survivors.<\/p>\n

The status quo is badly broken, and it will continue to be that way until we get serious about holding all of the responsible parties accountable for the climate crisis. Sadly, the California Earthquake Authority\u2019s report ignores opportunities to do just that.<\/p>\n

For example, Senate Bill 982, introduced by state Sen. Scott Wiener, gives the California attorney general the authority to bring lawsuits against Big Oil to recover insurance-related losses associated with their emissions, including premium increases and disaster-related FAIR Plans losses that are being shifted to all California policyholders. Revenue recovered through successful legal action could also be used to fund the \u201cCalifornia Safe Homes\u201d program for homeowners to upgrade roofs and landscaping, making property more resilient to wildfire. Right now, many everyday Californians are paying these costs out of pocket just to maintain potential access to insurance.<\/p>\n

The CEA report makes one thing clear: Though we can shift costs between insurers, utilities and governments, it\u2019s the public who pays. Large oil and gas corporations are substantially responsible for this mess and making historic profits selling the products that fuel it, while leaving the rest of us to deal with its costs. Until we fix that, we\u2019re mostly rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic while the ship continues to go down\u00a0\u2014 harming our state\u2019s economy and making life in California more expensive in the process.<\/p>\n

Dave Jones is a former California insurance commissioner and director of Climate Risk Initiative at the UC Berkeley Center for Law, Energy & the Environment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Climate change is sticking California with a multibillion-dollar bill, and right now, everyday families are the ones being…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":380042,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[19145,179,171336,4442,273,111,139,69,197700,2114,135,147],"class_list":{"0":"post-380041","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-bay-area","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-california-wildfires","11":"tag-climate","12":"tag-environment","13":"tag-new-zealand","14":"tag-newzealand","15":"tag-nz","16":"tag-open-forum","17":"tag-opinion","18":"tag-politics","19":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}