Climate change litigation
Climate change litigation, also known as climate litigation, is an emerging body of environmental law using legal practice to set case law precedent to further climate change mitigation efforts from public institutions, such as governments and companies. In the face of slow climate change politics delaying climate change mitigation, activists and lawyers have increased efforts to use national and international judiciary systems to advance the effort. Climate litigation typically engages in one of five types of legal claims: Constitutional law, administrative law, private law, or human rights. Litigants pursuing such cases have had mixed results.
Since the early 2000s, the legal frameworks for combating climate change have increasingly been available through legislation, and an increasing body of court cases have developed an international body of law connecting climate action to legal challenges, related to constitutional law, administrative law, private law, consumer protection law or human rights. Many of the successful cases and approaches have focused on advancing the needs of climate justice and the youth climate movement. Since 2015, there has been a trend in the use of human rights arguments in climate lawsuits, in part due to the recognition of the right to a healthy environment in more jurisdictions and at the United Nations.
High-profile climate litigation cases brought against states include Leghari v. Pakistan, Juliana v. United States, Urgenda v. The Netherlands, and Neubauer v. Germany, while Milieudefensie v Royal Dutch Shell is the highest-profile case against a corporation to date. Environmental activists have asserted that investor-owned coal, oil, and gas corporations could be legally and morally liable for climate-related human rights violations, even though political decisions could prevent them from engaging in such violations. Litigations are often carried out via collective pooling of effort and resources such as via organizations like Greenpeace, such as Greenpeace Poland which sued a coal utility and Greenpeace Germany which sued a car manufacturer. Such cases may take many years to unfold, and have occasionally been unsuccessful despite lengthy efforts, as was the case with Juliana v. United States.
The 2010s saw a growing trend of activist cases successfully being won in global courts. The 2017 UN Litigation Report identified 884 cases in 24 countries, including 654 cases in the United States and 230 cases in all other countries combined. As of July 1, 2020, the number of cases has almost doubled to at least 1,550 climate change cases filed in 38 countries, with approximately 1,200 cases filed in the US and over 350 filed in all other countries combined. By December 2022, the number had grown to 2,180, including 1,522 in the U.S. The number of litigation cases is expected to continue rising in the 2020s.
In March 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court declined a request by Republican-led states to block efforts by Democratic-led states to file lawsuits in state courts holding energy companies accountable for the damages caused by climate change.
There is a growing number of litigation cases, and international decisions can influence domestic courts. However, some cases work in the opposite direction: they challenge climate action and are not aligned with climate goals.
Methods and types of laws
Climate litigation typically falls into one of five broad areas of law:- Constitutional law focused on breaches of constitutional rights by the state.
- Administrative law challenging the merits of administrative decision making within existing on-the-books laws, such as not granting permissions for high-emissions projects.
- Private law challenging corporations or other organizations for negligence, nuisance, trespass, public trust, and unjust enrichment.
- Fraud or consumer protection typically challenging companies for misrepresenting information about climate impacts.
- Human rights claiming that failure to act on climate change or to protect related natural resources, such as the atmosphere or the rainforest, fails to protect human rights.
Scale
The 2017 UN Litigation Report identified 884 cases in 24 countries, including 654 cases in the United States and 230 cases in all other countries combined. As of July 1, 2020, the number of cases has almost doubled to at least 1,550 climate change cases filed in 38 countries, with approximately 1,200 cases filed in the US and over 350 filed in all other countries combined. By December 2022, the number had grown to 2,180, including 1,522 in the U.S.Scholars have observed a "rapidly growing landscape of climate litigation" and say that courts are shaping law and governance trajectories, beyond the narrow confines of domestic law.
By type of action
Cases to increase accountability
Courts play a critical role in creating, increasing and imposing accountability on and for public authorities and private actors for climate and related harms caused by their actions or their failure to act. Courts articulate what it means for public and private actors to be accountable in relation to climate action.National courts have ordered governments to:
- legislate on climate change ;
- define sufficiently ambitious mitigation targets ;
- develop a clear long-term emission-reduction strategy or a realistic long-term emission reduction pathway ;
- present complete information on how it plans to achieve its statutory carbon budget ;
- comply with a statutory carbon budget or to take appropriate measures to achieve a statutory carbon budget.
Between governments and companies
In 2017, San Francisco, Oakland and other California coastal communities sued multiple fossil-fuel companies for rising sea levels; they lost.
In 2018, the city of New York announced that it is taking five fossil fuel firms to federal court due to their contribution to climate change.
In 2020, Charleston, South Carolina, followed a similar strategy.
In June 2023, Multnomah County, Oregon sued several fossil fuel companies and industry trade groups, seeking at least $50 billion to help the county study and implement harm reduction strategies. The suit also asks for $50 million to cover past damages, and $1.5 billion in future damages. The lawsuit alleges that parties, including ExxonMobil, Chevron and the American Petroleum Institute, deceptively used "pseudo-science, fabricated doubt, and a well-funded, sustained public relations campaign" to subvert scientific consensus over the course of decades.
Cases involving multilateral institutions
European Union
In 2018, ten families from European countries, Kenya and Fiji filed a suit against the European Union for the threats against their homes caused by the EU greenhouse emissions. The European Union adopted an anti-slapp directive aiming to protect human right defenders and journalists from lawsuits intended to silence them.European Court of Human Rights
Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz v. Switzerland was a landmark case of the European Court of Human Rights in which the court ruled that Switzerland violated the European Convention on Human Rights by failing to adequately address climate change. It is the first case in which an international court has ruled that state inaction related to climate change violates human rights.United Nations
On 29 March 2023, the United Nations adopted a resolution calling for the International Court of Justice to "strengthen countries' obligations to curb warming and protect communities from climate disaster". In 2025 ICJ was expected to issue a decision clarifying legal requirements on states to respond to the climate crisis and articulating consequences that countries should face for failure to meet those requirements. In July 2025, the ICJ has said in an advisory opinion, a "clean, healthy and sustainable environment" is a human right, and that failing to protect the planet from the impacts of climate change may be a violation of international law.By country
Australia
As of February 2020, Australia had the second most number of cases pending in the world, with almost 200 cases.Cases in Australia include Torres Strait Islanders v. Australia, in which the United Nations Human Rights Committee found that the Australian government had violated the Islanders' human rights by failure to act on climate change, Youth Verdict v. Waratah Coal, and Sharma v. Minister for the Environment, in which eight young people unsuccessfully argued for an injunction against the expansion of a Whitehaven coal mine.