In recent years, courts around the world have increasingly become a platform for combating climate change. Initially, environmental activists limited themselves to protests or lobbying for legislation. However, in recent times, there has been a significant increase in lawsuits filed against states and corporations demanding compensation for climate-related damage.
Historically, most such lawsuits were filed against governments or municipal bodies, and the claims were related to challenging legislative acts or based on human rights violations—particularly the right to a healthy environment, which is guaranteed both under international treaties (for example, the European Convention On Human Rights) and by the national laws of the country hearing the dispute.
One can look at cases like Layla H. V. Commonwealth Of Virginia or Natalie R. V. State Of Utah. In both cases, the plaintiffs, supported by human rights organizations, argued that the defendants were aware of the harmful effects of fossil fuel use but failed to take action to mitigate them—thereby violating the constitutional rights of the plaintiffs to life, health, and safety.
One of the first instances in which a court ruled in favor of an environmental claim against a private company was the case of Milieudefensie V. Shell, heard by the District Court of The Hague in 2021. The environmental organization Milieudefensie, six other NGOs, and about 17,000 citizens demanded that Royal Dutch Shell (now Shell plc) reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 45% by 2030 (compared to 2019 levels). The court of first instance ruled in favor of the plaintiffs.
Currently, the main focus of legal experts is on the case Lliuya V. Rwe, in which the Higher Regional Court of Hamm (Germany), on May 28, 2025, after nearly ten years of legal proceedings, ultimately rejected the claims of Peruvian farmer Saúl Luciano Lliuya for damages amounting to approximately €13,000 from the company RWE.
The plaintiff's claims were based on the argument that global warming poses a threat of flooding to his property located in the Andes (Peru), and that RWE, in turn, is responsible for 0.47% (at the time of the ruling, 0.38%) of global greenhouse gas emissions and should compensate damages proportional to its share of those emissions.
To rule on the case, the court needed to establish two key facts:
The plaintiff failed to prove the first point, which served as grounds for the claim's rejection.
As a result, the court did not proceed to establish the second point and did not address, for example, how to determine the share of causal responsibility between individual emission sources, the increase in greenhouse gas concentration due to those emissions, and the specific event—i.e., the damage (or clear threat of damage) to the plaintiff’s property.
Nevertheless, the court noted that in cases of inevitable deterioration of property, an emission source company in Germany may be required to pay for preventive measures in accordance with its share of emissions.
Despite the formally negative outcome and the fact that the German court did not substantively rule on whether there is a causal connection between emissions from a specific company and damage from global warming in another part of the world, the case may become a significant precedent. Companies responsible for greenhouse gas emissions will now have to consider the possibility of receiving damage claims similar to those filed by Mr. Saúl Lliuya.
“In civil law countries, causality is usually understood as a direct, immediate link between an action and its consequences. In cases like Lliuya V. RWE, plaintiffs have to make a substantial effort to prove a direct link between emissions and damages. However, given the trends in climate litigation, positive outcomes in such cases no longer seem impossible,” said Ivan Ignatiev, head of the legal department at AIM Carbon.
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