Climate litigation reshapes global legal landscape with increasing scrutiny on fossil fuels and corporate claims

This year, the tenth anniversary of the Paris agreement, saw climate litigation consolidate into a global legal architecture that is reshaping how governments, companies and courts treat fossil fuels and corporate climate claims. What began a decade ago with the Urgenda ruling in the Netherlands – when a state was ordered to accelerate emissions reductions to protect citizens – has widened into a string of court decisions and settlements that campaigners say are turning international law and domestic procedure into instruments of climate policy.

The year opened with a high‑profile rebuke to UK ministers when the Scottish Court of Session ruled that approval of the Rosebank and Jackdaw North Sea oil and gas fields was unlawful because ministers had not taken into account the greenhouse gas emissions that would result from burning the extracted fuels. According to The Guardian, that judgment built on a 2024 supreme court ruling and prompted the government to publish new guidance in June on how environmental assessments must account for combustion emissions. Ministers later announced they would restart the approval process under the new guidance, and Equinor published a revised environmental assessment of Rosebank in October; campaigners have pledged fresh legal action if approval is granted. The legal interventions have not automatically prevented projects, but they have forced regulators to adopt more rigorous scrutiny before consenting to fossil‑fuel developments.

Litigation has also produced concrete project withdrawals and licence reversals worldwide. In Brazil, civil society opposition to the planned Nova Seival coal plant and Guaíba mine in Rio Grande do Sul led the developer Copelmi to withdraw plans after prolonged legal and administrative challenges. In Australia, the New South Wales Court of Appeal annulled approval for the Mount Pleasant Optimisation coal expansion, finding the planning commission failed to account for “scope 3” emissions from exported coal, a decision reported by The Guardian that underlines courts’ willingness to consider downstream combustion when evaluating licences. In Kenya, the long‑running legal challenge to the Lamu coal power plant culminated in the revocation of the project’s licence after the court found flaws in environmental assessment and public participation.

Corporate accountability has advanced through greenwashing suits and settlements. In May, EnergyAustralia settled a claim brought by Parents for Climate, acknowledging carbon offsets do not prevent or undo greenhouse‑gas damage and apologising to customers who felt misled, ABC News reported. Tech and consumer brands faced similar scrutiny: a Frankfurt court barred Apple from marketing an Apple Watch as “carbon neutral” because the firm’s claim relied on short‑term forestry leases in Paraguay, and Apple later scaled back such claims internationally. In France, a Paris court found parts of TotalEnergies’s marketing could mislead consumers about its net‑zero trajectory, while in the United States meat processors JBS USA and Tyson Foods reached settlements or undertook changes to avoid continuing disputed net‑zero or “climate‑friendly” claims, with funds redirected to climate‑smart agriculture and revised marketing practices.

Courts have also begun to weigh the human‑rights dimensions of the climate crisis. In July, the Inter‑American Court of Human Rights issued an advisory opinion recognising a right to a healthy climate and states’ duties to protect it, closely followed by an advisory ruling from the International Court of Justice that countries must prevent harm to the climate system and may be obliged to provide compensation and restitution for failures. According to The Guardian, those international opinions are already being cited in lawsuits worldwide and were referenced during recent climate talks, though attempts to translate advisory findings into diplomatic leverage met with mixed success.

Litigation is expanding the remedies sought from polluters. A decade‑long German case by Peruvian farmer Saúl Luciano Lliuya against RWE, while rejected on narrow grounds, helped open the path for further claims tying corporate emissions to specific harms. Later in the year, groups of Pakistani farmers launched fresh litigation against major German emitters over flood damage. Governments and jurisdictions are also responding: Hawaii settled with young plaintiffs represented by Our Children’s Trust, acknowledging constitutional rights to a life‑sustaining climate and producing a roadmap to decarbonise ground, sea and inter‑island air transport by 2045; the state published an energy and waste plan in October with EV charging, public‑transport investment and native reforestation measures.

At national policy level, litigation has forced governments to revisit strategy. In the UK, a revised carbon budget and growth delivery plan published in October followed a successful legal challenge that earlier found the government’s net‑zero strategy unlawful; campaigners have signalled intent to pursue further action at the European Court of Human Rights. In Norway the Borgarting court of appeal declared licences for three North Sea oilfields unlawful because approvals did not adequately assess climate impacts, giving the government six months to remedy licences rather than ordering immediate production halts.

Taken together, these rulings and settlements show courts increasingly ready to scrutinise both the direct approvals of fossil‑fuel infrastructure and the marketing claims of corporations. Legal experts and campaigners say the combined effect is a new, judicially enforced expectation that environmental impact assessments must account for combustion emissions, that corporate sustainability claims must be demonstrably verifiable and long‑term, and that rights‑based and transnational legal instruments can inform domestic adjudication and policy. Governments and companies are adjusting: some approvals have been paused or revised, corporate claims have been curtailed or reworded, and institutions are drafting stricter guidance to avoid future legal reversals.

Yet litigation is not a panacea. Several decisions stopped short of immediate production bans or left scope for regulators to re‑approve projects after additional analysis, and international advisory opinions remain non‑binding, their force depending on domestic courts and political will. Still, campaigners argue that the cumulative jurisprudence of this year , from project annullments and corporate settlements to international advisory rulings , has materially altered the balance of power, giving courts and communities new tools to hold states and companies to account for climate harms.