Los Angeles is on fire and big oil are the arsonists | Tzeporah Berman

Apocalyptic flames and smoke are raging through southern California in the worst fire in Los Angeles county’s history. At least seven people have died. Thousands of structures have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes. The private forecaster AccuWeather estimates initial damage and economic loss at more than $50bn and has the potential to be the costliest wildfire disaster in American history. The impacts of the disruption and loss faced by community members is incalculable.

While some media outlets are discussing the link between the LA fires and climate crisis, the president-elect Donald Trump and rightwing media are using this devastating event to foster misinformation including denying the role of climate crisis.

These powerful interests are ignoring what is fanning wildfire flames – fossil fuel driven climate change – and trying to deflect attention elsewhere. This is not surprising. Denying science and promoting false narratives squarely falls within the playbook of the fossil fuel industry and its proponents. Take for example, Trump calling climate change a hoax and once again threatening to withdraw the US from the Paris agreement.

Oil, gas and coal companies have been lying to us for decades. A 2015 investigation by Inside Climate News revealed that ExxonMobil’s own scientists knew as early as the 1970s that burning fossil fuels would cause global warming and increase the likelihood of extreme weather events. Instead of pivoting toward cleaner energy solutions, Exxon and other major players funded misinformation campaigns to sow doubt about climate science, delaying action and worsening the crisis.

California is part of a growing number of states and local governments challenging these lies through litigation. The legal suits against six oil companies and the American Petroleum Institute accuse them of deceiving the public regarding the connection between fossil fuels and climate crisis and profiting from that deception. The aim of the litigation is to redirect those profits into funds to address the damage of climate crisis on California. The litigation is still underway.

The science is clear. Wildfires are getting worse due to climate crisis as a result of increased temperatures and drier conditions in southern California. While more work needs to be done to determine the specific role fossil fuels played in the Los Angeles fires, we do know that emissions from the world’s 88 largest fossil fuel companies are responsible for 37% of the cumulative area burned by forest fires in the western US and south-western Canada between 1986 and 2021.

Ethically, the responsibility is undeniable. By continuing to expand production, fossil fuel companies are prioritizing shortterm profits over longterm planetary survival. As academic Naomi Oreskes points out in her book Merchants of Doubt, this is not mere negligence – it is a calculated decision to disregard human and environmental well-being.

The California governor Gavin Newsom is one of a small yet growing number of political leaders around the globe calling out fossil fuels for their role in climate crisis and generating health and environmental risks. In fact he has called oil, gas and coal “the polluting heart of the climate crisis” and has enacted new laws to limit their expansion and phase them out. Cities across California are joining him. Los Angeles, which has oil production within its jurisdiction, has banned new oil and gas drilling and committed to phasing out the use of coal and gas in its infrastructure among other efforts.

These leaders recognize they cannot go it alone. That international coordination is needed to hold oil and gas companies accountable and to manage a fair shift away from oil, gas and coal with no community, work or country left behind. That’s why the state of California, the city of Los Angeles, Richmond and many other communities where fossil fuel extraction is taking place have joined other states and cities around the world, as well as 14 countries, in calling for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty

We cannot allow fossil fuel companies to escape accountability while communities like Los Angeles suffer. Policymakers must act decisively to phase out fossil fuels and transition to renewable energy systems that give us all cleaner, safer and affordable choices.

At the same time, legal systems must hold these corporations liable for the damage they have caused. A fossil fuel treaty would foster multilateral cooperation around a binding agreement to end the expansion of fossil fuels, wind down existing production to levels that keeps climate change in check and work together to ensure a just transition.

Fossil fuel misinformation obscures and diminishes certain truths. Fossil fuels are not needed as part of this transition because there is enough renewable energy potential in every region of the world to deliver reliable, affordable energy security for all. Half of fossil fuels are wasted due to the industry’s inefficient production and transportation processes. One in eight deaths each year is due to fossil fuel air pollution.

Every barrel of oil, every cubic meter of gas, and every ton of coal burned brings us closer to environmental catastrophe. The wildfires raging across Los Angeles are not just natural disasters – they are the direct result of human choices. And fossil fuel companies, with full knowledge of their actions’ consequences, must face the consequences of their greed.

The people of Los Angeles – and the planet – deserve nothing less.

• Tzeporah Berman is a Canadian environmental activist, campaigner and writer