Global Trends in Climate Change Litigation: 2025 Snapshot (June 2025) was published by researchers at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics. Now in its seventh year, the report is published annually and provides a numerical and qualitative assessment of climate change-related lawsuits globally.
Human Level’s Take:
- Courts are a becoming a key place to shape the future of climate action—and inaction. The report shows that strategic litigation is rising as a tool to both advance and delay climate action, targeting both governments and the private sector. Over 80% of nearly 3,000 global climate cases recorded since 1986 aim to influence policy or public debate, covering issues from just transition to governance frameworks to climate-washing
- While the bulk of cases are in developed countries, new patterns are emerging in developing countries, where 60% of cases filed in Global South countries happened in just the past five years
- For companies, accountability through the courts is intensifying: around 1 in 5 cases now target companies or their executives, with expanding focus into new sectors and growing use of “polluter pays” and climate-washing litigation to test corporate responsibility and transparency
- Meanwhile, rights-based cases are also on the rise. Arguments grounded in human rights law are shaping policy frameworks, while just transition cases are a growing field.
- This reinforces the importance of using a human rights-based approach to set and achieve climate and environmental targets
Some key takeaways:
- Snapshot of the changing climate litigation landscape: Strategic climate litigation is a growing trend: in 2024, 226 new climate cases were filed (now totalling nearly 3,000 globally across 60 countries). The authors label 80% of these "strategic," in the sense that they seek to influence policy or public debate beyond the specific case in question. Cases tackled a range of issues related to climate change, for example just transition, government ambition and implementation of climate policies, corporate greenhouse gas emissions, company and government failure to adapt to climate risks, and climate-washing. While the bulk of cases are aligned with global climate change goals, there is a rising group of cases not aligned with climate goals, especially in the U.S. Sixty cases in 2024 challenged governments’ authority to pursue climate policies or companies’ ESG agendas. There is also a growing body of just transition cases, which use a human rights basis to hold governments and companies to account. The authors find that rights-based litigation has especially influenced legal and policy frameworks, even though enforcement is inconsistent. According to the report, these cases are focusing attention not only on what governments and companies do to address climate change, but also how.
- The Global South is a growing forum for litigation: While the majority of climate litigation cases are filed in developed countries (86% of those identified), developing countries are seeing a rise in cases. Of the 260 climate cases filed in Global South jurisdictions through the end of 2024, almost 60% of these have been filed in just the last five years. Around 25% of cases filed in developing countries had companies as defendants and 75% targeted governments. The authors have observed emerging patterns in Global South litigation, especially the use of constitutional rights and environmental laws as important legal tools. Governments and regulators are driving momentum in these countries, having initiated almost 56% of the cases in Global South countries in 2024, compared to 5% in Global North countries.
- Companies are in the spotlight: Around 20% of the climate cases filed in 2024 were against companies or their directors and senior officers. Although this figure is slightly down from 2023, the authors cite the expansion of climate litigation to include new sectors and issues, like animal agriculture, food retail and professional services sectors. In addition, certain types of litigation are increasing, such as ‘polluter pays’ litigation that attempts to hold companies financially accountable for climate-related harm. Between 2015 and 2025, more than 80 of these cases were filed, 11 in 2024. None of these cases have directly linked a company’s GHG emission to climate impacts, but some cases are helping pave the way towards more accountability. For example, in May 2025 a German court ruled in the Lliuya v. RWE case that companies can, in principle, be held legally liable for their contribution to climate-caused harm. Climate-washing cases are the most common strategy in corporate litigation, seeking to hold companies accountable for what they say and report about their climate impacts and goals. According to the authors, this poses the risk of increased ‘greenhushing’ by companies who fear legal repercussions from sustainability messaging. Corporate framework cases targeting companies’ climate strategies are earning more attention, with 25 recorded between 2015 and 2024. Meanwhile, failure-to-adapt cases that hold companies and governments accountable for their inaction in the face of climate risk remain low but are also increasing, with seven new cases filed in 2024 and 80 since 2015.
