What is climate litigation?
Legal action brought to compel climate action or establish liability for climate harm — a field that barely existed two decades ago and now comprises thousands of cases worldwide, several of which have produced binding outcomes governments did not expect.
The main categories:
Cases against governments, arguing that inadequate climate policy breaches constitutional rights, human rights obligations or statutory duties. The landmark example is a Dutch case in which the supreme court ordered the state to cut emissions by a specified amount, on human rights grounds — the first time a court compelled a national emissions target.
A German constitutional ruling found that insufficient near-term action unlawfully shifted the burden onto future generations, restricting their freedoms — an argument with wide resonance.
A European Court of Human Rights judgment found that inadequate climate policy could violate the right to private and family life, which applies across the member states.
Cases against companies, seeking emissions reductions or damages. Several jurisdictions have seen actions against major emitters using tort, nuisance and consumer protection law.
Greenwashing and disclosure cases, which are the fastest-growing category — challenging advertising claims, and challenging whether companies and financial institutions have adequately disclosed climate risk to investors.
Cases about projects, challenging approvals for airports, roads, mines and drilling on the basis that downstream emissions were not properly assessed. Several have succeeded on exactly that point, which has changed how approvals are written.
Cases brought by young people and by indigenous groups, invoking intergenerational and cultural rights.
Why it has grown:
Attribution science, which can now quantify how much a given emitter contributed to a given climate outcome, supplying evidence courts can work with.
Human rights framing, which gave claimants standing where environmental law did not.
Disclosure requirements, creating documents that can be tested.
What it achieves beyond the ruling: changed corporate behaviour under litigation risk, insurance and financing consequences, and — repeatedly — policy change without any judgment, simply from the case being brought.
General information, not legal advice.