More than 600 children and young adults including Greta Thunberg have filed a class action against the Swedish state for failing to take adequate measures to stop climate change and violating the European Convention on Human Rights.

The lawsuit calls on the government to take its fair share of global action to keep greenhouse gas emissions in line with Paris Agreement targets.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is key to meeting the Paris Agreement’s 2015 goal of keeping global warming below 2C. But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February triggered a scramble for energy that set back the effort. The new Swedish government’s climate change policy has also been the subject of intense scrutiny. The cabinet, which took power in September, has announced that it will scrap the environment ministry altogether. The budget for 2023 includes measures to increase emissions from the transport sector.

We are 636 young people in @auroramalet which is suing the Swedish state for insufficient climate measures.

“When the state implements a climate policy that threatens our human rights, it breaks the law.”#aurora #ClimateTrials #UprootTheSystemhttps://t.co/6qbZUO2hrE

— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) November 24, 2022

Also in light of the talks at the recently concluded COP27 for a separate injury and damage fund from developing countries, Thunberg believes that climate laws should be tightened. “We have no laws that provide long-term protection against the consequences of climate and environmental crises, but we must use the methods at our disposal and do everything we can,” she said.

In 2019, Thunberg, together with 16 climate change activists, filed a lawsuit against five countries with the UN’s third optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The lawsuit is filed against five countries Germany, France, Brazil, Argentina and Turkey. The activists believe that these nations are “perpetuating the climate crisis” by “failing to reduce emissions”, and they have also caused harm to the activists by harming them and denying indigenous petitioners their right to their culture.

Why legal processes work

Research by the London School of Economics Grantham Research Institute on climate change and the environment found an increase in legal cases against the fossil fuel industry in the past year outside the US and growing actions in other corporate sectors.

People have been filing legal challenges over climate change since the mid-1980s, but the number of climate change-related lawsuits around the world has more than doubled since 2015. A quarter of the 2,002 cases recorded so far have been filed in the past . just two years.

Climate processes have been most successful in getting governments to reduce national emissions. More and more people are seeking compensation from historical polluters.

Lawsuits can compel executives to testify under oath, force companies to pay for climate change, and change the way companies do business. If the companies actually have to pay for all the damage they have caused, that will be a big hurdle.

The prospect of liability adds much-needed pressure for more ambitious climate action and funding for loss and damage.
Climate processes will still be in vogue even if new loss and damage financing were agreed at the international level, there could be problems at the local level if the funds were not properly allocated or cannot be compensated with cash.
Above all, they give a platform to victims of the climate crisis and provide clarity on who is legally responsible for paying out.
Many of these cases seek to address greenwashing, while litigation increasingly suggests consumer and lifestyle choices that could reduce emissions and prevent misinformation and industry inaction.

Disadvantages of lawsuits

Detractors say climate processes are full of flaws. Ted Garrish of the Department of Energy in Annapolis says his city had accused energy producers of hiding information about climate change in a lawsuit last year. But in Annapolis, he says, flooding and waterfront erosion are expected after living in a coastal belt, and they’re not just caused by climate change. And that climate change is a global phenomenon, and American energy companies should be forced to foot the bill for emissions outside the borders of the United States.

An NGO called Systemic Justice says the broader climate action movement is dominated by “a white, middle-class and working-class perspective,” and says many more cases can be built to address the worsening injustices of the climate crisis.
Climate activists and lay people have also lost many cases. Early cases seeking damages from fossil fuel companies for Hurricane Katrina and for rising sea levels that affected the coastal Alaskan village of Kivalina failed. A 2017 lawsuit against German energy company RWE by Peruvian farmer Saúl Luciano Lliuya, whose home could be flooded by a melting glacier, is becoming a major example of corporate liability.

Notable climate processes in 2022

The Swedish trial is part of an international wave of climate-related legal actions, some of which are directed at national governments.

• In Australia, a court today ruled to block an $8.4 billion coal mine expansion in Queensland on human rights grounds in a landmark case that highlights the growing legal challenges to fossil fuel extraction around the world. The court said the project would have violated the rights of First Nations people in Queensland because of its climate impact.
• On November 16, the first hearing took place in Germany to force the car manufacturer BMW to “drastically reduce” CO2 emissions from its vehicles, and that by October 31, 2030, BMW must build new passenger cars that emit a maximum of 604 million tons of CO2, or prove greenhouse gas neutrality for any CO2 emissions in addition to this.
• Seven Utah youth between the ages of 10 and 19 filed a climate change lawsuit earlier this year titled The Natalie R. v. State of Utah case. It claims Utah is contributing to climate change because air pollution has increased, which will affect the health and lifespan of children here.
• Briana K (Kū), 15, and 13 others filed a lawsuit in June suing the Hawaii government for failing to protect her constitutional right to a healthy environment, challenging the state’s transportation department for operating a transportation system that prioritizes fossil-fueled cars over others environmentally friendly alternatives. They plan to force the department to cut carbon emissions completely by 2045.