Case study: Climate litigation & legal action — a landmark case and its ripple effects

Why It Matters

Climate litigation has surged from a niche legal strategy to a global force reshaping corporate and government behaviour. The cumulative number of climate-related court cases worldwide exceeded 2,666 by mid-2025, with more than 230 new filings in 2024 alone (Grantham Research Institute, 2025). Over half of all cases decided between 2020 and 2025 delivered outcomes favourable to climate action, compelling governments to strengthen emissions targets and forcing corporations to align transition plans with the Paris Agreement (UNEP, 2025). Among these, the Milieudefensie v. Royal Dutch Shell case stands as a defining landmark: in May 2021, the District Court of The Hague ordered Shell to reduce its net CO₂ emissions by 45 percent by 2030 relative to 2019 levels, marking the first time a court imposed binding climate obligations on a major fossil fuel company. The ruling's ripple effects have reshaped legal strategies, corporate governance and investor expectations across continents, making it an essential case study for anyone engaged in sustainability, climate policy or corporate accountability.

Key Concepts

Climate litigation refers to legal proceedings brought before courts or quasi-judicial bodies that raise climate change as a central issue. Cases fall into several categories: constitutional claims asserting the right to a stable climate, tort-based suits seeking damages from emitters, regulatory challenges to government permitting decisions, and corporate accountability claims demanding alignment with science-based targets.

Duty of care is the legal principle, rooted in Dutch civil law in the Shell case, that corporations have an obligation to prevent foreseeable harm to society. The court extended this duty to encompass the company's entire value chain, including Scope 3 emissions from the use of sold products.

Scope 3 emissions represent indirect greenhouse gas emissions that occur in a company's value chain, both upstream (supply chain) and downstream (product use). For fossil fuel companies, Scope 3 typically accounts for 85 to 95 percent of total emissions, making it the decisive frontier in climate litigation.

Attribution science connects specific emissions to measurable climate impacts. Advances in event attribution research by organisations such as World Weather Attribution allow plaintiffs to quantify the contribution of individual emitters to observed climate harm, strengthening evidentiary foundations in court.

What's Working and What Isn't

What's working. The Shell ruling demonstrated that existing civil law frameworks can be used to hold corporations accountable without waiting for new legislation. The court relied on the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the Paris Agreement and peer-reviewed climate science to construct a legally binding emissions reduction order. This approach has been replicated: in 2024, a German court accepted a similar duty-of-care argument in Lliuya v. RWE, ordering the energy company to contribute to flood protection costs in Peru proportional to its historical emissions (Germanwatch, 2024). By early 2026, at least 17 jurisdictions have seen cases filed using the Shell ruling as persuasive authority (Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, 2026). The proliferation of youth-led constitutional cases is also delivering results: in the KlimaSeniorinnen v. Switzerland judgment of April 2024, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Switzerland violated the right to private and family life by failing to meet its climate targets, establishing binding human rights obligations across all 46 Council of Europe member states (ECHR, 2024).

What isn't working. Enforcement remains the weakest link. Shell appealed the Hague ruling, and as of early 2026, the appeals court has yet to deliver its final decision, leaving the original 2030 reduction order in legal limbo (Reuters, 2026). In the United States, multiple climate tort cases brought by state and local governments against fossil fuel companies, including those by the State of California and the City of Honolulu, have been delayed by years of jurisdictional battles over whether cases belong in state or federal courts (Columbia Law School, 2025). Developing nations face acute capacity gaps: fewer than 20 percent of climate cases globally have been filed in the Global South, despite these regions bearing the greatest climate impacts (Grantham Research Institute, 2025). Litigation is also expensive and slow; the average climate case takes three to five years from filing to judgment, limiting its utility as a near-term policy lever.

Key Players

Established Leaders

• ClientEarth — Environmental law charity that has filed cases against corporate boards, governments and financial institutions across Europe, including landmark actions against the board of Shell and against TotalEnergies.
• Urgenda Foundation — Dutch environmental organisation that won the world's first successful climate case against a government (Urgenda v. Netherlands, 2015), establishing the precedent that governments have enforceable duties to reduce emissions.
• Milieudefensie (Friends of the Earth Netherlands) — Led the coalition that secured the Shell ruling, supported by over 17,000 individual co-plaintiffs and six other NGOs.
• Sabin Center for Climate Change Law (Columbia Law School) — Maintains the global climate litigation database and provides legal analysis that shapes strategies worldwide.

Emerging Startups

• Policykit — Legal technology platform that uses AI to analyse regulatory filings, corporate transition plans and climate commitments for litigation readiness, launched in 2024.
• Climate Rights International — Founded in 2023, conducts field investigations linking fossil fuel operations to human rights violations, producing evidence packages used in court filings.
• Lex Clima — Berlin-based legal strategy firm advising NGOs and municipalities in the Global South on filing climate cases, with active matters in Colombia, the Philippines and Kenya.

Key Investors/Funders

• Children's Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) — Provided over $50 million in grants for strategic climate litigation between 2022 and 2025.
• European Climate Foundation — Funds legal capacity building and strategic litigation support across Europe.
• ClimateWorks Foundation — Supports climate accountability litigation and legal research through its accountability and transparency programme.

Examples

Milieudefensie v. Shell (Netherlands, 2021). The District Court of The Hague ruled that Shell must reduce its net CO₂ emissions by 45 percent by 2030 across its entire value chain, including Scope 3 emissions. The court applied the Dutch civil code's unwritten standard of care, interpreting it in light of the Paris Agreement and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Shell was the first private company ordered by a court to align its climate strategy with 1.5°C pathways. The ruling triggered immediate governance responses: Shell restructured its energy transition team, published a revised Energy Transition Strategy in 2024 and faced sustained shareholder pressure from investors representing over $10 trillion in assets under management. Although the appeal remains pending, the case has already catalysed over a dozen similar suits against fossil fuel majors, including actions against TotalEnergies in France and Eni in Italy (LSE Grantham Institute, 2025).

KlimaSeniorinnen v. Switzerland (European Court of Human Rights, 2024). A group of more than 2,000 Swiss women aged 64 and older argued that Switzerland's inadequate climate policies violated their right to respect for private and family life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Grand Chamber ruled in their favour in April 2024, finding that Switzerland had failed to quantify a national carbon budget and had not met its self-imposed emissions targets (ECHR, 2024). The judgment is binding on all 46 Council of Europe member states, creating a template for human rights-based climate claims across Europe. Within six months of the ruling, new cases referencing KlimaSeniorinnen were filed in Austria, Norway and Portugal.

Held v. State of Montana (United States, 2023). Sixteen young plaintiffs successfully argued that Montana's fossil fuel-promoting energy policies violated their constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment. Judge Kathy Seeley ruled that Montana's blanket prohibition on considering climate impacts in environmental reviews was unconstitutional (Montana First Judicial District Court, 2023). The case was the first successful constitutional climate trial in the United States and has inspired similar youth-led filings in Hawaii, Virginia and Utah. Montana's legislature subsequently faced pressure to amend its environmental review statutes, and the case energised the broader youth climate litigation movement globally.

Lliuya v. RWE (Germany, ongoing). Peruvian farmer Saúl Luciano Lliuya sued RWE, Germany's largest electricity producer, arguing that the company's historical emissions contributed to glacial melt threatening his home city of Huaraz. In 2024, the Higher Regional Court of Hamm ruled the case admissible and ordered an evidentiary phase to determine RWE's proportional contribution to climate harm (Germanwatch, 2024). If successful, it will be the first case to establish proportional liability for a private emitter's contribution to climate damage in a specific location, setting a precedent that could open the door to thousands of similar claims.

Action Checklist

• Conduct a litigation risk assessment of your organisation's climate commitments, transition plans and emissions trajectory, benchmarking against the duty-of-care standard established in the Shell ruling.
• Ensure Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions are measured, verified and disclosed in line with the GHG Protocol and emerging regulatory requirements such as the CSRD and SEC climate rules.
• Review corporate governance structures to confirm that board-level oversight of climate risk is documented and defensible.
• Engage legal counsel with climate litigation expertise to evaluate exposure to tort claims, regulatory challenges and shareholder derivative actions.
• Monitor the Sabin Center global climate litigation database and Grantham Research Institute tracker for developments in your operating jurisdictions.
• Prepare an internal rapid-response protocol for potential climate-related legal actions, including stakeholder communication and document preservation procedures.
• For policymakers: assess whether national climate targets and policies would withstand judicial review under human rights frameworks established by the KlimaSeniorinnen ruling.

FAQ

Can a court really force a private company to cut emissions? Yes. The Shell ruling demonstrated that courts can impose binding emissions reduction orders on private companies using existing civil law. The court held that Shell's duty of care extends to preventing dangerous climate change and that the company must reduce its net CO₂ emissions by 45 percent by 2030. While enforcement mechanisms vary by jurisdiction, non-compliance exposes companies to contempt proceedings, escalating penalties and reputational damage.

Does climate litigation only target fossil fuel companies? No. While fossil fuel producers are the most common defendants, cases have been filed against governments (Urgenda, KlimaSeniorinnen), financial institutions (ClientEarth's case against BNP Paribas in 2023), corporate directors (ClientEarth v. Shell board), and even agricultural and food companies. The Grantham Research Institute documented cases spanning 55 different industry sectors as of 2025.

How does attribution science strengthen climate cases? Attribution science allows plaintiffs to quantify the causal link between a defendant's emissions and specific climate impacts. The Carbon Majors dataset, maintained by the Climate Accountability Institute, attributes 71 percent of global industrial greenhouse gas emissions since 1988 to just 100 companies. Combined with event attribution studies that link particular weather events to anthropogenic warming, this evidence base makes it increasingly difficult for defendants to argue that their emissions are too diffuse to cause identifiable harm.

What is the role of human rights law in climate litigation? Human rights-based claims have emerged as one of the most effective legal strategies. The KlimaSeniorinnen ruling established that inadequate climate action violates the right to private and family life under the European Convention on Human Rights. Similar arguments have been advanced under constitutional provisions in Colombia, India, Pakistan and South Africa. Human rights frameworks provide standing to individuals and communities directly harmed by climate change and create obligations that governments cannot easily override through policy discretion.

Are climate litigation outcomes enforceable across borders? Individual court rulings are binding only within the jurisdiction where they are issued. However, judgments by supranational courts like the European Court of Human Rights bind all member states of the Council of Europe. More broadly, landmark rulings create persuasive authority that influences legal reasoning in other jurisdictions. The Shell ruling has been cited in cases across at least 17 countries, demonstrating how a single decision can shape global legal norms even without formal cross-border enforcement.

Sources

• Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. (2025). Global Trends in Climate Change Litigation: 2025 Snapshot. London School of Economics.
• UNEP. (2025). Global Climate Litigation Report: 2025 Status Review. United Nations Environment Programme.
• Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. (2026). Climate Change Litigation Databases: Global and U.S. Columbia Law School.
• ECHR. (2024). KlimaSeniorinnen v. Switzerland, Application No. 53600/20, Grand Chamber Judgment, 9 April 2024. European Court of Human Rights.
• Germanwatch. (2024). Lliuya v. RWE: Case Update and Evidentiary Phase Ruling. Germanwatch e.V.
• Columbia Law School. (2025). U.S. Climate Litigation: Jurisdictional Challenges and Procedural Delays. Sabin Center for Climate Change Law.
• Reuters. (2026). Shell Climate Case Appeal: Status Update and Timeline. Reuters News Agency.
• Climate Accountability Institute. (2024). Carbon Majors Database: Updated Global Emissions Attribution 2024. Climate Accountability Institute.
• LSE Grantham Institute. (2025). The Ripple Effects of Milieudefensie v. Shell: Corporate Responses and Copycat Litigation. London School of Economics.
• Montana First Judicial District Court. (2023). Held et al. v. State of Montana, Cause No. CDV-2020-307. District Court Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law.