Contextual Trends in Private Climate Change Litigation Against the Fossil Fuel Industry: A Global Analysis
Abstract: Over 70% of all historical CO2 emissions can be attributed to the 78 largest fossil fuel corporations and state-owned entities (Carbon Majors, 2024), while only 5.3% of climate cases in courts have targeted these same companies. This gap in holding fossil fuel corporations accountable is, therefore, one that has received increasingly more attention in the last several years, especially after the Paris Agreement. Research tries to find legally and scientifically sound ways to attribute emissions and damages to these corporations and, subsequently, hold them accountable for their share of emissions.
However, in current research, gaps in our understanding remain regarding i) trends in private climate litigation against fossil fuel companies across different geographies, ii) the arguments used in this type of litigation, and iii) its broader impacts with regards to leaving fossil fuels underground and climate change governance.
This thesis analysed climate court cases against fossil fuel corporations, aiming to identify contextual trends and implications, asking the question: “How do contextual factors in private climate litigation against fossil fuel corporations contribute to Leaving Fossil Fuels Underground?”.
To answer this question, this thesis has used the theories of Risk Society by Ulrich Beck (1992), Polycentric Governance by Elinor Ostrom (2010), and Inclusive Development by Joyeeta Gupta et al. (2015). These theories combined allow for an analysis of the evolution of private climate litigation, highlighting both its systemic and local nature, and how it has grown into an increasingly more vital part in the governance of climate change.
The methods for this research constitute a mixed-methods research approach. A systematic literature review, interviews, case studies, and mapping research methods have been used in this research specif-ically. Where the systematic literature review, interviews, and case studies contribute to our qualitative understanding of private climate litigation against fossil fuel corporations, the mapping results constitute the quantitative and geographical component of this thesis. The case studies used were retrieved from the Sabin Centre for Climate Change Law database (Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, 2025a, 2025b).
The results of this research consist of a series of maps, visualizing the state of PCL globally. The four main findings of this research follow from this, concluding that i) increasing access to justice increases the number of climate litigation cases against fossil fuel corporations, that ii) the human-rights turn observed in broader climate litigation has not (yet) translated into climate litigation against fossil fuel corporations, that iii) countries with high fossil fuel dependence have primarily put forth procedural arguments against specific extraction projects, mainly using administrative law to prevent their con-struction or operation, and that iv) corporate accountability for climate change continues its stride, citing the procedural victory in the Lliuya v RWE case as the most recent example.