Oil and gas companies are desperate to stop the wave of lawsuits seeking to hold them financially responsible for their role in climate change. Should these suits get to trial, their executives would have to testify about whether they knowingly misled the public about the climate threat posed by their products going back to the 1970s.

A federal district judge in a recent ruling made it harder for the defendants to shut down a lawsuit filed by the state of Rhode Island to have the industry pay the costs associated with climate change.