Artist Paolo Cirio sues the fossil fuel industry on behalf of the environment in Climate Tribunal: The Fossil Fuels Industry on Trial, his latest body of work. In an eponymous new book accompanying the project, Cirio acts as prosecutor. He has compiled a trove of essays, articles, and data as evidence for the jury — in this case, the reader — to evaluate.
His argument is simple. As the primary source of carbon pollution emissions, the fossil fuel industry caused our current climate crisis. These corporations knew of the consequences of their actions and lied about them, misleading the public and their investors and profiting in the process. It stands to reason, then, that these companies should be liable for damages caused by their actions.
Yet somehow, the book points out, the fossil fuel industry has not taken its fair share of blame for the climate crisis, nor its fair share of moral and ethical responsibility by implementing corrective actions. Climate Tribunal aims to combat the sense of helplessness we often feel around climate change by identifying a crime and shifting the onus onto the perpetrator.
This is a lofty aim, but issues arise in its execution. Cirio, for one, approaches sciences, including law, politics, and economics, as artistic material. Some of the terms that he cites frequently within the book are established, while some are coined by Cirio himself. It is therefore difficult to distinguish fact from the artist’s creative usage of those facts. The most obvious issue, though, is how the complex problem of how to combat climate change is reduced to the single solution of litigating the fossil fuels industry. If only it were that simple.
The very fact that Cirio has chosen to frame this project as an artwork and present his case to the art world instead of the courtroom is an indictment of the justice system itself. If governments lack the power to regulate the fossil fuel industry due to its complicity in it, then who can? Who suffers as a result, and who has the right to justice? At its core, Climate Tribunal is a quixotic project that envisions a fundamental shift of right and responsibility — after all, as Cirio might argue, isn’t that what law should be about? What should be, rather than what is?
Climate Tribunal: The Fossil Fuels Industry on Trial, written by Paolo Cirio and published by the Institute of Network Cultures, is available for purchase and free download online.
