A federal judge ruled on Thursday in favor of a motion by five big oil companies to dismiss a lawsuit brought against them by New York City, which demanded they pay the costs of adapting the city's infrastructure to climate change, The New York Times reported.

The ruling comes nearly a month after a federal judge in San Francisco dismissed a similar case brought by the cities of Oakland and San Francisco.

There really is little need to read past the cover of ExxonMobil’s 2018 Energy and Carbon Summary, a report purportedly meant to offer insights to shareholders on how the company manages climate-related risks. Apparently at Exxon, the plan is for humanity to frack its way out of the climate crisis by pouring more money into developing oil and gas.

“The report you are reading looks into a lower-carbon future. It provides a perspective on what such a future might mean for our business,” Darren Woods, CEO of ExxonMobil, writes in the introduction.

But it doesn’t.

Today New York Mayor Bill De Blasio announced a goal to divest New York City’s pension funds from fossil fuel reserve owners within five years. This makes New York the first major American city to announce such a move.

According to a statement, the city’s five pension funds have approximately $5 billion invested in over 190 fossil fuel companies.

“New York City is standing up for future generations by becoming the first major U.S. city to divest our pension funds from fossil fuels,” said Mayor de Blasio. “At the same time, we’re bringing the fight against climate change straight to the fossil fuel companies that knew about its effects and intentionally misled the public to protect their profits.”

By Karen Savage. Crossposted from Climate Liability News.

Exxon’s quest to convince a federal judge that two state attorneys general are stifling their right to free speech is proving to be no easy task.

In a hearing Thursday in New York, U.S. District Court Judge Valerie Caproni said the oil giant’s rationale involved “wild leaps of logic” in claiming New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey are infringing on the company’s First Amendment rights by pursuing climate fraud investigations.