Increasing Climate Litigation

Recent years have seen the large-scale emergence of a new strategy to fight climate change: litigation. Hundreds of climate-related lawsuits have been filed across the world, many of which have led to specific regulatory actions by national, state, and local governments to mitigate emissions and protect land and natural resources.

Indigenous communities have led the way on this strategy. Island nations in the Caribbean, Pacific, and West Indies won major international rulings pressuring larger nations to more aggressively curb emissions, and in Hawaii, youth and Indigenous activists won a landmark victory requiring the state’s transportation system to decarbonize rapidly. Elsewhere, in April 2024, a major European court issued a landmark ruling against the Swiss government for not doing enough to fight climate change; similarly, in August 2024, a South Korean court ruled that the government’s climate policies are failing to protect citizens’ rights, calling for stronger carbon-reduction targets. Recent decisions granting legal rights to water bodies represent a growing legal shift toward holding governments and corporations accountable for environmental damage.

Legal decisions, however, can go the other way; in November 2024, an appeals court in The Hague dismissed a 2021 ruling that required Shell to cut carbon emissions by 45 percent by 2030, and a June 2024 U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Chevron deference is expected to open the door for more legal challenges to environmental regulations. Moreover, the Trump administration is dismantling federal climate initiatives and environmental protections critical to safeguarding the planet. Still, given recent successes, litigation will likely become an increasingly potent tool for fighting climate change, and many expect this trend to accelerate in the coming years.