Several parts of Chamath’s prediction show signs of being directionally accurate, but the overall long‑run claim (“rather than materially reducing corporate carbon emissions”) cannot be robustly evaluated yet.

1. Growth of a consulting/auditing industry around ESG and emissions reporting
Evidence strongly supports a boom in ESG and sustainability consulting tied to disclosure and net‑zero planning:

• The global ESG consulting market is estimated around US$8–12B in 2024 and projected to grow to roughly US$36–39B by 2034, with auditing & verification the largest segment and North America (especially the U.S.) a leading region. (businessresearchinsights.com)
• Sustainability consulting services overall are valued around US$15.6B in 2024, expected to more than triple by 2034; about 64% of large U.S. corporations have engaged ESG consultants specifically to meet climate‑disclosure and reporting requirements. (globalgrowthinsights.com)
• In Europe, ESG reporting and consultancy is similarly expanding, with the market projected to nearly quadruple from 2024 to 2033, driven in large part by new disclosure mandates. (linkedin.com)
  This aligns with his claim that a large amount of money is flowing to consultants and verifiers around Scope 1/2/3 and broader ESG reporting.

2. Quality concerns and "BS"/greenwashing risks in climate reports
There is substantial evidence of inconsistent or low‑quality emissions data and climate claims:

• Even by 2024, only about 15% of companies in a Deloitte survey reported Scope 3 emissions, leaving a “huge blind spot” in total footprints, while Scope 3 can be up to 95% of emissions. (sustainabilitymag.com)
• Academic and practitioner work notes that no or low‑quality Scope 3 reporting slows global supply‑chain decarbonization and misallocates investor capital. (cmr.berkeley.edu)
• Regulators (e.g., Australia’s ASIC) report widespread problems in climate‑related communications: inconsistent use of “net zero”/“carbon neutral,” lack of detail on assumptions, and varied carbon‑accounting practices that can mislead investors. (regtrail.com)
• Multiple enforcement and media cases (e.g., DWS’s greenwashing settlements, Barclays’ criticized sustainability‑linked financing, Woodside’s net‑zero claims despite expanding fossil exploration) highlight how ESG labeling and emissions metrics can be used in ways many observers judge as weak or misleading. (ft.com)
  This supports his skepticism that a significant portion of the new disclosure ecosystem produces questionable or low‑decision‑usefulness output, although it does not show that reports are universally “BS.”

3. “Lawsuit upon lawsuit … adjudicated … on this concept of materiality”
Climate‑ and ESG‑related litigation has surged, including many cases that hinge on misrepresentation, greenwashing, or material omissions:

• The Grantham Research Institute reports a sharp rise in climate litigation against companies: about 230 cases since 2015, with two‑thirds filed after 2020, and a rapidly growing subset of “climate‑washing” cases (47 in 2023 alone). (theguardian.com)
• Courts and regulators are increasingly treating climate statements as potentially material to investors; legal commentary flags that net‑zero and similar claims can give rise to securities litigation if misleading. (skadden.com)
• There have been numerous greenwashing enforcement actions and cases (e.g., SEC actions against DWS and WisdomTree, the Active Super greenwashing ruling in Australia, KLM’s misleading environmental marketing case in Europe, and ongoing consumer and securities complaints over carbon‑neutral or net‑zero claims). (ft.com)
• New SEC climate‑disclosure rules themselves have been hit with multiple lawsuits from both industry groups and environmental organizations, contesting what must be disclosed and whether the SEC overstepped—explicitly invoking traditional securities “materiality” standards. (theguardian.com)
  This is broadly consistent with his forecast that the new ESG/climate‑disclosure environment would feed significant waves of litigation, much of it centered on what is “material” to investors.

4. Have these rules failed to materially reduce corporate emissions?
This is the hardest part of the prediction to test, and the evidence is mixed and still emerging:

• Empirical work on earlier mandatory disclosure regimes (e.g., the U.S. EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program) finds that plants subject to public CO₂ reporting reduced emissions rates by about 7% on average, with even larger reductions (≈10–14%) for plants owned by public companies or S&P 500 firms, implying disclosure alone can drive real abatement under some conditions. (nber.org)
• A 2025 study on Chinese A‑share firms concludes that environmental information disclosure significantly improves corporate environmental performance, particularly in densely populated areas with limited green space. (arxiv.org)
• Other analyses emphasize that poor or missing Scope 3 disclosure hampers decarbonization, suggesting that the quality and coverage of rules matter for whether they actually reduce emissions. (cmr.berkeley.edu)
  At the same time, many of the most ambitious new frameworks Chamath was implicitly talking about (EU CSRD/ESRS, ISSB’s IFRS S1/S2, California’s SB 253, the SEC’s 2024 climate rule) either only started to apply to reporting periods in 2024–2025 or are partially stayed/under legal challenge. (theguardian.com) We do not yet have multi‑year, global empirical evaluations of these post‑2022 Scope 1/2/3 disclosure regimes and their causal effect on emissions.

Putting that together:

• Confirmed/partly confirmed today: A rapidly growing ESG consulting/auditing industry tied to disclosure; widespread concerns about low‑quality or greenwashed reporting; and significant growth in climate‑ and ESG‑related litigation (including disputes over materiality of climate information).
• Not yet testable in full: Whether the new generation of detailed Scope 1/2/3 and ESG disclosure rules will primarily channel resources into consulting & lawsuits instead of producing meaningful, sustained reductions in corporate emissions over a decade‑plus horizon.

Because these major disclosure regimes are only just coming into force and credible long‑run emissions evidence is not yet available, it is too early to say whether Chamath’s central, comparative claim (“lawsuits and consulting rather than materially reduced emissions”) is ultimately right or wrong. Hence the prediction, as framed, is best classified as inconclusive (too early to judge) at this point.