NO FLY ZONE SPEAKER: SUE BIG OIL: A LEGAL STRATEGY FOR POLITICAL ACCOUNTABILITY

In July 2022, Vancouver city councillors voted 6-5 in support of a motion to set aside about $700,000 — roughly $1 per every Vancouver resident — to fund litigation against Canada’s biggest producers of oil and gas.

Sue Big Oil is a collaboration of ordinary British Columbians concerned about harmful climate change impacts in BC communities, and the skyrocketing costs for BC’s local governments and taxpayers. Given the role of the fossil fuel industry in knowingly causing climate change and blocking policies and actions to address climate change, we urge our local governments to take legal action to force the world’s largest fossil fuel companies to pay their fair share of climate costs.

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 ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Andrew Gage has been a Staff Lawyer with West Coast Environmental Law for over two decades and is currently project lead for the organization’s Climate Change program and part of the Secretariat for the Sue Big Oil campaign. Under his direction West Coast’s climate work has focused on the legal and professional consequences – to industry, government and professionals – of failing to address climate change. Andrew was an expert witness before the Parliamentary Committees considering the Canadian Net Zero Emissions Accountability Act (enacted in 2020) and has published extensively on environmental and climate change law, including academic articles and most recently a book chapter on climate litigation and loss and damage.

 

Andrew dedicates his work to prevent and minimize the impacts of climate change to his two children.