"Big oil faces a rising number of climate-focused lawsuits, report finds", 12 Sep 2024

Big oil is facing a soaring number of climate-focused lawsuits, a new analysis has found. It’s a sign that more communities are demanding accountability for the industry’s contributions to the climate crisis.

For the report, published on Thursday, Oil Change International and the climate research organization Zero Carbon Analytics pulled data from a Columbia University database, focusing on cases in which the world’s 25 largest fossil fuel producers were named as defendants.

The number of cases filed against those companies globally each year has nearly tripled since 2015 – the year the UN Paris climate agreement was signed – with 86 cases filed and 40 currently pending, the authors found...

The suits were filed by cities, states and other government organizations, as well as environmental groups, Indigenous tribes and individuals. Fifty were filed in US courts, while 24 were filed in European countries, five in Australia and four in Nigeria.

The largest growth in litigation was in complaints demanding compensation for climate damages, which account for 38% of cases, the authors found. Thirty-three such lawsuits have been filed since 2015, 30 of which were brought since 2017. A key reason for the increase in these cases is that “the science has just gotten a lot better”, Noah Walker-Crawford, a research fellow at the London School of Economics’ Grantham Institute, said...

No fossil fuel company has yet been forced to pay climate damages, but the potential liabilities are massive, with previous reports estimating the sector’s largest polluters are responsible for trillions of dollars in lost homes, livelihoods and infrastructure...

The report’s authors documented an increase in other kinds of climate lawsuits, including challenges to allegedly misleading advertising. Such suits today make up 16% of all climate complaints against oil majors and are a “are a winning legal tactic”