Climate change litigation

As of February 2020, Australia had the second most number of cases pending in the world, with almost 200 cases.[1]

In July 2020, Friends of the Irish Environment won a landmark case against the Irish government for failing to take sufficient action to address the climate and ecological crisis.[6] The Supreme Court of Ireland ruled that the Irish government's 2017 National Mitigation Plan was inadequate, specifying that it did not provide enough detail on how it would reduce greenhouse gas emissions.[7]

In 2019, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands confirmed that the government must cut carbon dioxide emissions, as climate change threatens human health.[8]

The Netherlands had committed to reducing its carbon dioxide emissions from 1990 levels by 49% by 2030 with various intermediate targets. However, the Dutch Environmental Assessment Agency determined that the country would be missing its goals for 2020.[9]

In 2012, the Dutch lawyer Roger Cox gave the idea of judicial intervention to force action against climate change.[10][11] In 2013, the Urgenda Foundation, with 900 co-plaintiffs, has filed a lawsuit against the Government of the Netherlands "for not taking sufficient measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that cause dangerous climate change".[10]

In 2015, the District Court of The Hague ruled that the government of the Netherlands must do more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to protect its citizens from climate change (Urgenda climate case).[10][12][13] It was described as a "precedent-setting judgment"[12] and as the "world’s first climate liability suit".[13]

According to James Thornton, chief executive of Client Earth, "Most remarkably, it is based in essence on established science and the ancient principle of a government's duty of care. That reasoning is applicable in any legal system and will certainly be used by courts in other countries".[12][14] In 2018, a court of appeal in The Hague has upheld the precedent-setting judgment that forces the Dutch government to step up its efforts to curb greenhouse-gas emissions in the Netherlands.[15]

In December 2019, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands upheld the ruling on appeal, affirming that the government must cut carbon dioxide emissions by 25% from 1990 levels, by the end of 2020, on the basis that climate change poses a risk to human health.[8][9]

In December 2020 three British citizens, Marina Tricks, Adetola Onamade, Jerry Amokwandoh, and the climate litigation charity Plan B announced that they were taking legal action against the UK government for failing to take sufficient action to address the climate and ecological crisis.[16] The plaintiffs announced that they will allege that the government's ongoing funding of fossil fuels both in the UK and other countries constitute a violation of their rights to life and to family life, as well as violating the Paris Agreement and the UK Climate Change Act of 2008.[17]

As of February 2020, the U.S. had the most pending cases with over 1000 in the court system.[1] Examples include Connecticut v. ExxonMobil Corp. or Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency.

One of the first landmark climate change litigation cases was Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, decided by the Supreme Court of the United States in 2007. The suit was brought by several American states against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) after the EPA declined to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions as part of their duty under the Clean Air Act (CAA) in 2003. The EPA had argued that their authority under the Clean Air Act were to regulate "air pollutants", which they claimed carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases did not fall under, so could not apply regulations. States, like Massachusetts, argued that these emissions could lead to climate change-related damages to their states, such as through rising ocean levels, and thus these emissions should be seen as harmful under the CAA and within the EPA's ability to regulate. While EPA initially won at the Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court, on a 5-4 decision, agreed with the states that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases had been shown to be harmful, and required the EPA to regulate them.

In 2015, a number of American youth, represented by Our Children's Trust, filed a lawsuit against the United States government in 2015, contending that their future lives would be harmed due to the government's inactivity towards mitigating climate change. While similar suits had been filed and dismissed by the courts for numerous reasons, Juliana v. United States gained traction when a District Judge Ann Aiken ruled that the case had merit to continue, and that "a climate system capable of sustaining human life" was a fundamental right under the United States Constitution.[18] The United States government has since attempted to dismiss the case through various challenges to Aiken's findings but it remains pending in court actions.

In September 2019, a group of six children and young adults from Portugal filed a lawsuit at the European Court of Human Rights. Supported by the British NGO Global Legal Action Network (GLAN), they argue that tougher climate action is needed to safeguard their future physical and mental well-being. The court asked 33 European governments to explain by February 2021 whether their failure to tackle global heating violates Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights.[19][20]

After the landmark ruling of the Netherlands in 2015, groups in other countries tried the same judicial approach.[2][3][4] For instance, groups went to court in order to protect people from climate change in Belgium,[12] India,[21] New Zealand,[22] Norway,[23] South Africa,[22] Switzerland[24] and the United States.[2][25][4]

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.[26]

In Colombia, a group of children sued the government to protect the Amazon from deforestation due to the deforestation's contribution to climate change, and in 2018, the Supreme Court ruled that the Colombian rainforest was an "entity subject of rights" requiring protection and restoration.[27]

In 2020, an administrative court case in the France, required the Macron administration to review their policies to address climate change to make sure they were significant enough to meet Paris Agreement commitments.[28][29][30]

In the United States, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace together with the cities of Boulder, Arcata and Oakland won against the Export-Import Bank of the United States and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (state-owned enterprises of the United States government), which were accused of financing fossil-fuel projects detrimental to a stable climate, in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act (case filed in 2002 and settled in 2009).[31][32][33][34]

In 2016, a government body of the Philippines (the Commission on Human Rights) launched an official investigation concerning climate change against 47 of the world's largest carbon producers.[25][35] It found in 2019 that fossil fuel companies have a legal obligation to act against climate change and may be held responsible for damages.[36]

In 2017, Saul Luciano Lliuya sued RWE to protect his hometown of Huaraz from a swollen glacier lake at risk of overflowing.[37]

In 2017, San Francisco, Oakland and other California coastal communities sued multiple fossil-fuel companies for rising sea levels.[4] In 2018, the city of New York announced that it is taking five fossil fuel firms (BP, ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Shell) to federal court due to their contribution to climate change (from which the city is already suffering).[38] Charleston South Carolina followed a similar strategy in 2020.[39]