Earth Today | Climate cases grow globally
Published:Thursday | October 9, 2025 | 12:07 AM
MORE INDIVIDUALS and organisations worldwide are taking legal action to resolve a range of climate change-related disputes.
“As of 30 June 2025, the cumulative number of cases tracked in the Sabin Center’s databases includes 3,099 climate change cases filed in 55 jurisdictions and 24 international or regional courts, tribunals, quasi-judicial bodies or other adjudicatory bodies,” reads a section of the 2025 Climate change in the courtroom: Trends, impacts and emerging lessons report.
The report is a publication of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), developed in collaboration with the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School in the United States of America.
The majority of the cases, the report found, have or are being pursued in the United States (1,936 cases) while 1,113 cases are from all other jurisdictions combined, “which includes 611 cases filed in countries in the Global North, 305 cases filed in countries in the Global South, and 216 cases filed before international or regional courts, tribunals, quasi-judicial bodies or other adjudicatory bodies”.
“This growth reflects the increasing use of courts as venues for addressing the multifaceted legal dimensions of climate change. As the field evolves, it has become clear – as recognised by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – that climate litigation may play a role in accelerating the adoption of mitigation and adaptation strategies and may lead to an increase in the ambition of such efforts,” the report noted.
Further, it said that the cases “underscore that the terrain of climate litigation is not uniform, and the interests of plaintiffs are not unidirectional”.
CLIMATE Litigation
“Climate litigation is a complex and diverse field that shapes and contests the global response to climate change. The field involves a multiplicity of actors, forums, legal strategies and outcomes. Significantly, climate litigation as a field is becoming a model for other climate-adjacent fields such as plastics and biodiversity litigation,” it explained.
And the growth in such cases is expected to continue even as they become more diverse.
“As more climate-related laws are codified and new systems for mitigation and adaptation are implemented, the number, type and legal character of disputes continue to diversify. Not all cases push in the same direction. For example, litigation regarding carbon offsets and credits often resembles commercial contract disputes, and climate-washing cases aim to police misleading speech in consumer and investor markets about the climate change-related performance of products – often without directly addressing the substantive ambition of climate action,” the report said.
“In addition, lawsuits filed by regulated entities frequently challenge the stringency of climate regulations or contest other regulatory choices governments make in their implementation and application of climate-related laws. Courts also may be asked to adjudicate trade-offs between climate change and other environmental, economic and social interests,” the publication added.
Among the cases being pursued are not only pro-climate cases but also what are referred to as backlash cases.
“These cases are often brought by actors who perceive climate-related measures as a threat to their interests, with the goal to obstruct regulation, reassert competing priorities or intimidate those advocating for climate justice,” the report revealed.
Such matters include cases against states, cases against corporations, individuals and non-governmental organisations, as well as Investor-State Dispute Settlements.