An Exxon gas station on Jan 31, 2023 in Miami, Florida. (PHOTO / AFP)

SACRAMENTO — The US state of California is going after some of the world's largest oil companies, with lawsuit and legislation to hold them accountable for the damage caused by climate change-induced storms and wildfires, officials said Saturday.

In the past week, California, the largest economy in the United States, sued five major oil companies for covering up climate risks caused by fossil fuels and passed a legislation to require companies that operate in the state and make over 1 billion US dollars annually to disclose their greenhouse-gas emissions.

The governor said the big oil companies had long been deceiving the public over the risks associated with fossil fuels and causing billions of dollars in damage to communities and the environment

The lawsuit was filed on Friday against oil companies Exxon, Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and BP, as well as their trade group, the American Petroleum Institute (API).

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The complaint said the defendants had created a public nuisance, damaged natural resources and state property, and violated California law by misleading state residents with false advertising and misleading environmental marketing.

"The climate crisis is after all fossil fuel crisis, period ... And these guys (oil companies) have been playing us for fools," said California Governor Gavin Newsom at a conference hosted by the Climate Group and livestreamed on Sunday.

The governor said the big oil companies had long been deceiving the public over the risks associated with fossil fuels and causing billions of dollars in damage to communities and the environment.

According to the complaint, although the companies had known since at least the 1960s that the burning of fossil fuels would warm the planet and change the climate, they denied or downplayed climate change in public statements and marketing.

The complaint included evidence of the defendants' knowledge of the environmental risks, such as a 1968 research report commissioned by the API, and an internal Exxon memo in 1978.

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"As a consequence, in the world that I'm living in, the hots are so much hotter, the dries are so much drier, the wets are so much wetter," said Newsom at the conference.