Courts are recognising companies’ obligations to cut emissions and enforce legal limits on government support for fossil fuel production
With increasing global warming, the volume of climate litigation is also increasing gradually, as affected communities take on big polluters, including companies. One glance at national and international court rulings show that governments have a legal duty to keep people safe and do everything in their power to not let temperature rise cross the 1.5°C threshold.
More importantly, governments have to protect future generations and show that their actions match their promises, according to a new report by the Climate Litigation Network.
Titled ‘Laying the foundations for our shared future: How ten years of climate cases built a legal architecture for climate protection’, the report revealed that a surge in climate lawsuits is forcing governments to set clear rules for national climate action.
According to the report, courts have recently begun to recognise companies’ obligations to cut emissions to prevent public harm, as well as enforce legal limits on government support for fossil fuel production and to hold big polluters accountable for climate damage.
Rise in climate litigation
Rising climate cases are influential as they encourage communities to take on big polluters who have contributed to the climate crisis. It also sends signals to investors and regulators who perceive climate risk.
In 2024, for example, a climate case was fought in South Korea called Do-Hyun Kim et al v South Korea. Here, the country’s highest court found the country’s climate law was unconstitutional as there was no mention of emissions reduction targets between 2030 and net zero in 2050. This had an effect on determining the country’s 2035 emission reduction target.
“Under the Paris Agreement, countries set their own targets to hold warming to 1.5° C – but the Agreement lacks a system to test whether each country’s target is sufficient and fair towards that collective temperature limit. Over the past decade, people have used the courts to build that accountability framework from the ground up. We’ve never been in a better place to use the law to protect people and the planet from climate change,” said Dennis van Berkel, Legal Counsel at Urgenda.
In Australia, Brazil, Belgium, Germany, France, the Netherlands, South Korea, the UK climate litigation has driven major policy shifts by pushing governments to strengthen emissions targets, adopt clearer net-zero plans, or reassess fossil-fuel projects, the report found.
The world’s biggest corporate polluters, including Holcim, RWE, Shell and Total, have been taken to court by communities who have suffered majorly due to climate change, the report stated.
“What was a moral imperative ten years ago has become a legal imperative. Big polluters – the governments and companies most responsible for climate change – have a duty to pull their weight in the global effort to stop dangerous climate change. We all know that the world’s highest-emitting companies shouldn’t be able to pollute with impunity, making profits on the back of our future. Now the courts are catching up,” said Sarah Mead, co-director of the Climate Litigation Network.
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