It was stated that there has been a rapid increase in climate lawsuits filed against companies around the world since 2015 and that the majority of the lawsuits have been concluded in favor of the plaintiff.
The Grantham Institute for Climate Change and Environmental Research at the London School of Economics has released its 6th report “Global Trends in Climate Litigation: 2024 Outlook” report.
The analysis in the report used a dataset of 2,666 climate lawsuits compiled by Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center on Climate Change. About 70 percent of these lawsuits were filed since 2015, when the Paris Agreement was adopted, and 233 of them were filed last year.
According to the report, 230 climate-related lawsuits have been filed against companies and trade associations since 2015. More than two-thirds of the lawsuits were filed after 2020.
While historically the majority of climate change-related lawsuits have been filed against governments, the number of lawsuits filed against companies has rapidly increased.
In the US, where the number of climate lawsuits is the highest, 15 percent of these lawsuits were filed against companies, compared to 40 percent in the rest of the world.
Last year, 129 climate lawsuits were filed in the US, 24 in the UK, 10 in Brazil, 7 in Germany and 6 in Australia.
The area with the highest number of lawsuits was “climate laundering”. To date, 43 of the 140 cases on climate laundering were filed in 2023.
More than half of the 140 climate laundering cases examined in 2016-2023 were officially resolved. Of the 77 such cases, 54 were decided in favor of the plaintiff.
Climate laundering or washing refers to the exaggeration of an organization or sector’s climate-related concerns and actions. The term is derived from “greenwashing”, a common term in the fight against climate change.
“Polluter pays” lawsuits become more frequent
Last year, more than 30 “polluter pays” lawsuits were filed around the world to hold companies accountable for their emissions and climate damage.
The report’s authors identified 6 “turn off the taps” lawsuits questioning the flow of funding to projects and activities that are not aligned with climate action. However, 33 such lawsuits filed since 2015 have been lost.
In addition to the increase in climate lawsuits against companies, it was also observed that lawsuits have spread to new countries. In the Global South of developing countries, climate lawsuits accounted for 8 percent of total lawsuits.
