Climate lawsuits are exploding. Are homicide charges next?

Lawsuits against fossil fuel companies over climate change are piling up. Legislators and activists are pushing prosecutors to pursue criminal charges. Children are suing governments, arguing that their right to a healthy environment is being trampled on.

Welcome to the new universe of climate litigation, where the courts have become one of the most important battlegrounds in the fight over the greenhouse gas emissions warming the planet.

Around the world, both innovative and old-school legal arguments are being used to go after companies and governments to seek redress or forestall future harms. At the same time, the fossil fuel industry and its allies have powerful new legal grounds at their disposal to challenge climate rules. A number of cases could be taken up by the highest courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court and the International Criminal Court.

There are myriad lawsuits, which fit into several important categories. Here’s what to watch in the coming months.

Lawsuits against oil giants are spreading: At least 86 lawsuits have been filed globally against the world’s biggest oil, gas and coal producers, according to a report published Thursday by the advocacy and research groups Oil Change International and Zero Carbon Analytics. The vast majority of those were filed in just the past nine years since the signing of the 2015 Paris accord, the landmark agreement among nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

About 40% of the lawsuits examined by the group sought compensation for climate-related damage to the environment or communities. Others challenged what they called misleading advertising claims, or alleged that the companies had failed to sufficiently reduce their emissions.

So far, no oil and gas company has had to pay liability claims exclusively for damage associated with climate change, according to Oil Change International.

The cases include:

— A major victory for environmentalists: A court in the Netherlands ruled in 2021 that Royal Dutch Shell must reduce its emissions by 45% by 2030. The case was filed by Milieudefensie, the Dutch wing of Friends of the Earth. Similar cases have since been filed in other European countries. The company, now known as Shell, has appealed.

— A Peruvian suing in Germany: With the help of a German nonprofit, a Peruvian farmer, Saúl Luciano Lliuya, sued German electricity producer RWE in 2015, alleging that the company’s emissions contributed to the melting of a glacier near his home and that the company should help pay for a dam to protect him and his neighbors from flooding. His case was dismissed, but Lliuya is expected to appear at an appeals court hearing in Germany next year.

The company expects the suit to be dismissed again, a spokesperson said Thursday, in line with decisions by German courts in suits against car companies that relied on similar claims.

Cities and states are among the plaintiffs: In the United States, more than two dozen of the lawsuits against oil companies have been filed by state and local governments.

Many argue that the oil companies knew about the dangers of climate change for years but concealed that information. The approach is similar to those of past lawsuits that led to landmark settlements with tobacco and opioid companies. Major cases include:

— Deception claims in Hawaii: A case filed by the city and county of Honolulu against Sunoco and other companies alleges that they deceived the public about climate change. This case was filed in Hawaii state court, but the companies argue that the regulation of interstate pollution is governed by federal, not state, law.

The case could end up before the U.S. Supreme Court. In June, the Supreme Court asked the solicitor general, who supervises government litigation, for her input, a sign it could take up the case. If the jurisdiction question is taken all the way to the Supreme Court, it may not bode well for environmentalists, given the court’s majority of conservative justices.

In a filing to the Supreme Court in February, lawyers for Sunoco and the other companies wrote that the cases “present a serious threat to one of the nation’s most vital industries” and that allowing them to proceed was a “blueprint for chaos.”

— Massachusetts’ Exxon Mobil suit: The case that might be closest to trial is in Massachusetts, where in 2019, then-Attorney General Maura Healey sued Exxon Mobil, arguing that the company had violated consumer protection laws by misleading customers and investors about its role in climate change. The company did not respond to a request for comment.

Should there be criminal charges? There are growing calls for prosecutors to consider criminal charges related to climate change.

This year, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, both Democrats, called on Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate oil companies for what they called a “decades-long disinformation campaign” about the effects of fossil fuels.

In a recent paper in The Harvard Environmental Law Review, David Arkush, of the advocacy group Public Citizen, and Donald Braman, a law professor at George Washington University, argued that in the United States, fossil fuel companies could be charged with types of homicide short of first-degree murder based on claims of deception about climate change.

There has been movement on criminal cases elsewhere:

— “Ecocide” as a crime in Belgium: This year, the Belgian parliament codified ecocide, defined as unlawful acts committed with knowledge of a substantial likelihood of serious damage to the environment, as a crime. And this week at The Hague, Netherlands, ecocide was formally introduced for consideration by member states at the International Criminal Court.

— Complaint in Paris against TotalEnergies: In May, environmental groups filed a complaint against the board of directors and main shareholders of TotalEnergies, arguing they should be held criminally liable for decisions that contributed to climate change. The alleged offenses included deliberately endangering the lives of others and involuntary manslaughter, among others. The company did not respond to a request for comment.

Young people push for ‘climate rights’: The nonprofit law center Our Children’s Trust says it has filed climate lawsuits and legal actions in all 50 states.

Its most well-known case is Juliana v. United States, in which 21 young people argue that the government violated their constitutional rights by failing to protect the environment. It’s become a model for similar cases abroad, including a recent victory for environmentalists in South Korea.

The Juliana case has been wending its way through the courts for nearly a decade. In 2020, an appeals court threw it out entirely, concluding that the courts were not the right venue for the grievances. But on Thursday, the plaintiffs filed a petition with the Supreme Court to send the case back to trial.

Other prominent cases from the same organization include:

— A win in Montana coal country: A judge last year ruled that the state had violated its constitution by not considering climate change when approving fossil fuel projects. Montana is a major coal- and gas-producing state. The attorney general has filed an appeal, and business groups have filed briefs supporting the state.

A spokesperson for the attorney general, Austin Knudsen, called the case a “publicity stunt” and said Our Children’s Trust was “exploiting young Montanans in an effort to get attention and raise money for their political activism.”

— A Hawaii settlement: In June, Gov. Josh Green announced an agreement with youth plaintiffs who had sued the state’s Transportation Department over its use of fossil fuels. The state agreed to decarbonize its transportation system within 20 years.

A wave of suits from industry is likely: In June, the Supreme Court overturned what is known as Chevron deference, or the legal precedent that federal regulatory agencies have authority to decide how to apply laws that lack specificity.

It was a major victory for conservatives in a long-running campaign to reduce the power of the federal government. The decision is expected to lead to a torrent of cases challenging environmental regulations. There are already significant challenges to federal rules on issues like air pollution, many from Republican-led states and industry groups.

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