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Columnist and Technology

How the future rise of AI lawyers could force Big Oil to pay up

By the 2030s, a wave of litigation led by artificial intelligence was forcing Big Oil firms to pay billions in damages for their emissions, says our guide to the future, Rowan Hooper

By Rowan Hooper

12 February 2025

GDKEG6 Oil refinery at twilight

“Fossil fuel companies were never going to voluntarily admit to their role in the climate crisis”… An oil refinery at twilight.

Samart Boonyang/Alamy

Fossil fuel companies were never going to voluntarily admit to their role in the climate crisis. By the late 2020s, people turned to two methods to force the issue. Illegal means involved sabotage, destruction of oil infrastructure and more. Legal methods focused on litigation to force governments to comply with emissions targets and on corporations to pay reparations for past damage. If the energy policies of the 47th US president, Donald Trump, were “drill, baby, drill”,…

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