Climate Lawsuits Against Polluting Companies Are Increasing Around the World, Report Finds

Campaigners and legal counsel of the Dutch citizens’ movement Fossil-Free NL walk towards the court before filing a case against KLM because of the Dutch airline’s misleading advertisements that suggest flying won’t worsen the climate crisis, on April 20, 2023 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Michel Porro / Getty Images

A new report has found that climate lawsuits being filed against companies are on the rise all over the world, and most of them have been successful.

The report by the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) — Global trends in climate change litigation: 2024 snapshot — said that roughly 230 climate cases have been brought against trade associations and corporations since 2015, more than two-thirds of which have been filed since 2020.

“Climate litigation… has become an undeniably significant trend in how stakeholders are seeking to advance climate action and accountability,” said Andy Raine, the United Nations Environment Programme’s deputy director of law division, as The Guardian reported.

One of the fastest growing types of litigation concerns “climate washing.” According to the report, 47 of these lawsuits were filed against governments and companies last year.

The report stated that there had been “more than 140 such cases filed to date on climate washing, making this one of the most rapidly expanding areas of litigation,” a press release from LSE said.

Of the almost 140 climate-washing cases between 2016 and 2023, 77 had reached official decisions, with 54 being found in favor of the claimant.

Most climate cases that have been filed in the past have been against governments. In the United States, 15 percent of climate cases filed in 2023 were against companies, while 40 percent of cases in the rest of the world involved companies.

^{Supporters celebrate after Fossil-Free NL’s win against KLM on March 20, 2024. Hermen van de Waal / Fossielvrij NL}

In 2023, more than 30 “polluter pays” lawsuits filed worldwide sought to hold corporations accountable for climate harms allegedly stemming from their production of greenhouse gas emissions.

Six “turning off the taps” lawsuits challenging the funding of activities and projects not in line with climate action were identified in the report.

The report’s analysis was based on more than 2,600 climate cases compiled by Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change. Approximately 70 percent of these lawsuits have been filed since the adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2015, with 233 having been filed in 2023.

Climate lawsuits have been brought in 55 total countries, with cases having been filed in Portugal and Panama for the first time.

The authors of the study confirmed that climate litigation has been increasing in the Global South, noting that “over 200 climate cases from these countries are recorded in the Global database, comprising around 8{2add217ad2235d262e63a186eb2903fa1b3aade4b9d8db7a510444e5d82aac71} of all cases.”

The U.S. had the most climate litigation cases filed last year with 129. The United Kingdom had the second highest number with 24, followed by Brazil with 10, Germany with seven and Australia with six.

The U.S. also had the most documented climate cases with a total of 1,745. Australia has had 132 overall, with just six filed in 2023.

Last year, major international tribunals and courts were asked to advise and rule on climate change. While only five percent of climate lawsuits come before international courts, many of them have the potential to influence domestic cases.

“[W]hether climate litigation is advancing or hindering climate action remains difficult to determine,” the authors said. “Some types of cases, such as government framework cases, have already had lasting impacts on domestic climate governance. However, the long-term implications of other case types, such as climate-washing cases, remain unclear, despite the relatively high levels of ‘successful’ cases in the courtroom.”

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