Can New York's Top Lawyer Fight Climate Change?

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman opened a new front in the war over climate change regulation earlier this month, bringing to an end an investigation of Peabody Energy, the world's largest publicly traded coal company, and opening a new one of ExxonMobil.

The cases raise questions about whether an attorney general can have an impact on the global warming debate.

Lester Brickman, a professor at Cardozo Law School and expert on mass tort litigation, said the recent moves are Schneiderman's way of cultivating the environmental vote. The Peabody settlement, for example, doesn't carry any financial penalties but instead requires the company to make minor changes to its disclosure of shareholder risk.

"Everybody who is capable of being an investor knows that coal is on the way out." Brickman said. "It's on the way out irrespective of climate change issues, because natural gas is far less expensive than coal."

The impact of the Exxon investigation is less clear because it is still in the early stages. But Bevis Longstreth, a former member of the Securities and Exchange Commission, says that the subpoena may reveal damaging information about what Exxon knew about the environmental harm its business could cause.

"It will be very very awkward and embarrassing and hurtful," he said, "and it will sensitize the world who reads about this kind of case — and everyone will who is a thinking human being — to what we need to do in the future."

Exxon has rejected the idea that it suppressed climate change research.