Climate litigation is growing risk to fossil fuel industry, other companies show new figures

BATHINDA: Almost 500 climate litigation cases have been filed around the world since 2020, and legal action poses a growing risk for the fossil fuel industry and other companies, as well as governments, according to a new report published on Thursday (30 June, 2022) by the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
The report on ‘Global trends in climate change litigation: 2022 snapshot’, by Joana Setzer and Catherine Higham, shows that 475 cases were filed between January 1, 2020 and May 31, 2022. Of these, more than two-thirds (321) were filed in the United States and almost 7 per cent (32) were in countries of the Global South.
The authors analysed records of 2002 current or past cases of climate litigation since 1986. Cases have been filed in 44 countries and 15 international or regional courts and tribunals, including the courts of the European Union.