Climate change litigation

• 1. Introduction

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  Climate change litigation found some of its most unexpected evidence not in scientific journals, but in a company's own archives. Between 1969 and 1970, Italy's national energy company, Eni, had commissioned an internal study from an affiliate research center. That study warned that unchecked fossil fuel use could trigger a "catastrophic" climate crisis by the year 2000. Eni set the findings aside.

  Courts have increasingly become the arena where advocates turn when legislatures move too slowly. By December 2022, more than 2,180 climate cases had been filed across dozens of countries. Governments have been ordered to tighten their climate targets. Oil companies have been told to cut their emissions.

  What legal strategies have actually worked? Which cases collapsed despite years of effort? And what happens when fossil fuel companies use the same courts to push back?

• 2. The Urgenda Blueprint

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  In 2012, Dutch lawyer Roger Cox proposed using a court to force a national government to cut its greenhouse gas emissions. Cox brought the idea to the Urgenda Foundation. The foundation gathered 900 co-plaintiffs and filed a lawsuit against the government of the Netherlands in 2013. The claim: the Dutch state was not taking sufficient measures to reduce the emissions driving dangerous climate change.

  Two years later, the District Court of The Hague agreed. The ruling was described as a "precedent-setting judgment" and as the "world's first climate liability suit." The court ordered the Netherlands to reduce emissions and protect its citizens from climate change.

  A court of appeal in The Hague upheld the ruling in 2018. In December 2019, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands confirmed it on final appeal. The government was required to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 25% from 1990 levels by the end of 2020.

  The Hague ruling became a template. Groups in Brazil, Belgium, India, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, Switzerland, and the United States went to court using similar approaches. National courts have since ordered governments to legislate on climate, define more ambitious mitigation targets, and develop long-term emission reduction strategies. In Colombia, a group of children sued the government over the Amazon rainforest's deforestation. In 2018, the Colombian Supreme Court ruled that the rainforest was an "entity subject of rights" requiring protection and restoration.

• 3. Youth at the Bar

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  In March 2020, sixteen youth residents of Montana filed a lawsuit against their state government. The plaintiffs were then aged two through eighteen. Their claim was that Montana's support for the fossil fuel industry had worsened climate change. This, they argued, denied them their constitutional right to "a clean and healthful environment in Montana for present and future generations."

  On the 12th of June 2023, Held v. Montana became the first constitutional law climate lawsuit to go to trial in the United States. On the 14th of August 2023, the trial judge ruled in the youth plaintiffs' favor. Montana's Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the 10th of July 2024, and on the 18th of December 2024, it upheld the ruling.

  Juliana v. United States traced a harder path. In 2015, a group of young Americans represented by Our Children's Trust sued the federal government. A district judge, Ann Aiken, ruled that the case had sufficient merit to continue. Judge Aiken found that "a climate system capable of sustaining human life" was a fundamental right under the United States Constitution. After years of legal proceedings, the lawsuit was dismissed.

  In 2022, over 600 children and young people in Sweden brought a class action lawsuit against their government through the association Aurora. They argued that Sweden's climate policies were inadequate, failed to meet Paris Agreement commitments, and violated the Convention on the Rights of the Child. On the 29th of August 2024, the Constitutional Court of Korea reached a comparable conclusion. The court found that the absence of legally binding greenhouse gas targets for 2031-2049 violated the constitutional rights of future generations. Finland's Supreme Administrative Court had expressed a similar principle, stating that "postponing measures transfers the responsibility to the future."

• 4. Suing Companies

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  In May 2021, the district court of The Hague ordered Royal Dutch Shell to cut its carbon emissions by 45% by the end of 2030. The baseline for that target was 2019 levels. The ruling also affirmed Shell's responsibility for scope 3 emissions, meaning the gases produced by its suppliers and customers. Observers described Milieudefensie et al v Royal Dutch Shell as the highest-profile climate case ever brought against a corporation to that point. In 2024, a Dutch appeals court dismissed the specific reduction targets.

  Tecneco, a company owned by the Italian energy giant Eni, produced a report in 1978. That report estimated that atmospheric CO2 concentration would reach 375-400 parts per million by the year 2000. The report also noted that such changes to the atmosphere's thermal balance could have "serious consequences for the biosphere." Eni's own magazine carried references to climate change in articles from the late 1980s and 1990s. During the same period, the company ran advertising campaigns describing natural gas as a "clean fuel."

  On the 9th of May 2023, Greenpeace Italy and advocacy group ReCommon, together with twelve Italian plaintiffs, announced a lawsuit against Eni. Known as La Giusta Causa, or "The Right Cause," it became the first climate lawsuit ever filed against a privately owned company in Italy. The plaintiffs asked the court to rule that Eni must cut its emissions from 2020 levels by 45% within 2030. The first hearing took place on the 16th of February 2024.

  In June 2023, Multnomah County, Oregon, sued several fossil fuel companies and industry trade groups. The county sought at least $50 billion to study and implement harm reduction strategies. It also sought $50 million to cover past damages and $1.5 billion in future damages. The lawsuit named defendants including ExxonMobil, Chevron, and the American Petroleum Institute. It alleged they had used "pseudo-science, fabricated doubt, and a well-funded, sustained public relations campaign" to subvert the scientific consensus over decades.

  New York City announced in 2018 that it was taking five fossil fuel firms to federal court. Those firms were BP, ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and Shell.

• 5. International Courts Enter

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  On the 29th of March 2023, the United Nations adopted a resolution on climate obligations. It called on the International Court of Justice to strengthen countries' obligations to curb warming and protect communities from climate disaster. In July 2025, the ICJ issued its response. The advisory opinion stated that "a clean, healthy and sustainable environment" is a human right. It also stated that failing to protect the planet from climate change may violate international law.

  Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz v. Switzerland produced a landmark ruling from the European Court of Human Rights in 2024. The court found that Switzerland had violated the European Convention on Human Rights by failing to adequately address climate change. Observers described it as the first time an international court had ruled that state inaction on climate was a human rights violation.

  On the 28th of January 2026, The Hague District Court ruled that the Dutch government had discriminated against the inhabitants of Bonaire. The case had been filed in early 2024 by eight local residents of Bonaire, together with Greenpeace Netherlands. The court based its ruling on articles 8 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Those articles protect the right to private and family life and prohibit discrimination. The court also found that the Netherlands was not reducing its emissions in line with the fair-share principle of the Paris Agreement.

• 6. Limits and Backlash

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  Nearly 50 of the more than 230 climate cases recorded in 2023 included arguments not aligned with climate goals. A 2024 study found that many of these cases appeared designed to obstruct climate action through legal tactics. The vast majority were filed in the United States.

  One prominent example of counter-litigation was RWE v. The Netherlands. RWE, a German energy company, sued the Dutch government under the Energy Charter Treaty. The company alleged that the government had failed to allow adequate time and resources for it to transition away from coal. The case illustrated what scholars have called "backlash litigation." As courts order fossil fuel phase-outs, companies begin arguing that their rights under international investment law have been violated.

  Carvalho v. Parliament and Council was dismissed in 2021 for lack of legal standing. Other cases have been rejected because courts found the constitutional claims exceeded what they could resolve under the doctrine of separation of powers.

  The European Union adopted an anti-SLAPP directive to protect human rights defenders and journalists from lawsuits intended to silence them. In March 2025, the United States Supreme Court declined a request by Republican-led states. Those states had sought to block Democratic-led states from filing climate lawsuits against energy companies in state courts.

  In December 2024, South Africa's Supreme Court stopped the government's plan to add 1,500 megawatts of coal-fired power. The court called the decision "unlawful and invalid" and required the minister and the regulator to pay costs to the complainants.