On October 14th, 2021, the Green Party of California posted a 100 page academic report conducted by environmental anthropologist professor, Nan Greer on Chevron Corporation, one of the world’s biggest oil giants. The report is about Chevron’s destructive impact on the planet.
The California Greens shared the report on Facebook and said the documents show the oil giant’s illegal rampage of environmental destruction in thirty-one countries. California’s Green Party said Chevron’s disregard for human life is criminal.
The Green party of California noted that Chevron owes 50 billion dollars worldwide to communities which it refuses to pay.
What the report is about?
The independent report shows that there are currently 70 ongoing cases against Chevron across the world. The company has legal battles in 31 countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and beyond. The report says that of all the cases, only 0.006% of required fines, court judgements, and settlements have been paid. The amount is about 286 million dollars. Meanwhile another 50.5 billion dollars is still pending.
For example in the United States alone, there are 13 ongoing litigations against Chevron.
The Greer report says Chevron is not being held accountable for the abuses being inflicted on humans and the environment.
“How is it that we can’t even hold Chevron accountable in our own country?” asks Greer. “It’s a scary thing to think that national and international laws are up for the highest bidder, but this is what we are seeing.”
In Alaska, 400 Inuit were forcibly relocated in relation to flooding associated with Chevron’s oil exploration in the region. The oil company is also accused of seismic blasting underwater in order to find oil reserves beneath the Arctic Ocean. This is a practice that scientists fear will adversely affect wildlife. The marine area is home to 116 species of fish and over 80% of the world’s narwhal population.
How is it that we can’t even hold Chevron accountable in our own country?”
Prof. Nan Greer
Chevron’s most controversial case
The largest payout case that Chevron faced was a case called Amazon Chernobyl. It was for 9.5 billion dollars in environmental damages representing 30,000 plaintiffs in Ecuador. The communities in the Amazon won the case. The court found that Chevron deliberately dumped billions of gallons of toxic oil waste in Amazon rainforests and on indigenous lands. Chevron said that its assets in Ecuador are not enough to cover the amount ordered by the court.
The company tried a similar tactic in Argentina and Brazil. Pablo Fajardo, who was affected by Chevron and became a lawyer on the case said: “One argument put by Chevron (to not comply with the order) was to say that there was still a ruling, a pending procedure in Ecuador and that it was not appropriate to standardize the sentence outside because a ruling was pending”.
Chevron is on top of the list of eight investor-owned corporations which are behind more than 10% of the world’s carbon emissions since 1965.
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