Towards a broader climate ethics: Confronting the oil industry with morally relevant facts

To establish and justify the oil industry’s responsibilities for climate change in a non-arbitrary way, it is necessary to formulate a solid morally relevant factual basis. Analysing the morally relevant facts helps clarify the conduct of oil and gas companies, understand the moral context within which they operate, evince their intentions and, overall, it provides a normative foundation for the actions such responsibilities would compel them to undertake, as well as for their possible liability. After outlining the dimensions of the responsibility oil and gas companies should assume with regards to climate change and their relationship with morally relevant facts, this article will analyse them in detail. Oil and gas companies have known for decades that their activities caused climate change (Fact A – Awareness); they did not take steps to modify their fossil-fuel centred behaviour (Fact B – Behaviour), even though less carbon-intensive alternatives were possible (Fact C – Capacity). Additionally, oil and gas companies funded and orchestrated climate change denial campaigns, through which they successfully opposed political action against climate change (Fact D – Denial), while at the same time amassing and distributing fabulous wealth (Fact E – Enrichment) to the privileged few.