First, I agree with previous legislation that penalized tobacco companies for not informing their customers about the risk of lung cancer. In the same way, the new legislation tries to portray the actions of the oil companies. Is this justified? It has been known since the 18th century that burning gasoline produces carbon dioxide. For the first time, Arrhenius calculated the greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide in 1896. Since the legislation specifically mentions the period between 2000 and 2019, it would be very difficult to say that it was not known in 2000 that the use of gasoline could lead to global warming. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been around since 1988. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was adopted in 1992. Although some people still deny the existence of climate change, I don't think it's fair to say that the oil companies have deceive consumers.
The second problem is that oil companies themselves emit only about 10% of the carbon dioxide their customers emit when using their products. If you decide to buy a plane ticket, who is responsible for your carbon footprint? It is very difficult to say that only the company that sells kerosene is to blame. What about the airline? What about booking individual flights? Same thing with cars. Is ExxonMobil responsible for driving the Hummer and not the Prius? Or do you drive a lot instead of cycling?
The third problem is fundamental and arises when one tries to punish the company. Who is being punished specifically? Many executives and decision makers at companies like ExxonMobil have changed over the past 20 years. No punitive tax hurts them except the shareholders. ExxonMobil is known as " widows and orphans' equity " and is a low-risk investment held by many people with little investment knowledge. Most of what ExxonMobil pays out will come from the pockets of ordinary people who own these shares through pension funds and the like. They can tax the company on the ground until the existing shareholders (not those who owned the shares at the time of the alleged wrongdoing) are eliminated. If the tax doesn't destroy the company, then the company has to find the money somewhere, in this case by raising the price of gas. This, in turn, drives ordinary people.
I think we are all to some extent responsible for climate change. This is a result of our standard of living and how we can afford it. Punishing a person or organization for this is often an exercise in public anger management that serves no real purpose. Why are oil companies punished and not coal companies? What about emissions from other sectors such as cement and steel? Carbon emissions are such an integral part of all economic activities that you will never be able to target the guilty individuals. This is a public responsibility.
What might work, but is politically difficult, is to penalize everyone *starting now* for future CO2 emissions. This will require a carbon tax. And that will make everything from gas to plane tickets more expensive because of the emissions generated. However, people love cheap flights and cheap gas. The politician who tells you that you can keep your flights cheap and your gas cheap because he'll find *someone else* to pay for climate change is just lying to you.
