Introduction
Climate change lawsuits are becoming more common as people try to hold big companies responsible for pollution. These cases use basic laws about harm and damage to make companies pay for the problems their pollution causes. This new area of law is challenging because it tries to connect old legal rules with new environmental problems.
Types of Legal Claims
People filing these lawsuits use several different legal approaches. Public nuisance claims say that company pollution hurts everyone’s right to clean air and water. Private nuisance claims argue that pollution damages individual property. Negligence claims say companies were careless because they knew pollution would cause harm but did it anyway. Some cases use strict liability, which means companies are responsible even if they were careful. Others use product liability to blame companies for making harmful products like oil and gas.
Proving the Connection: The Biggest Problem
The hardest part of these cases is proving that one company’s pollution actually caused specific damage. Courts need proof that the company’s actions directly led to the harm. This is very difficult with climate change because millions of companies and people create pollution worldwide.
Direct connection is hard to prove because any single company’s pollution is tiny compared to all the pollution in the world. Lawyers now use scientific studies to show how much each company contributed to global warming. Legal connection means showing that the company’s pollution was a reasonable and expected cause of the damage, not just a small part of a bigger problem.
Right to Sue and Types of Harm
Federal courts have strict rules about who can sue. People must show they suffered real, specific harm that came from the company’s actions. Early climate cases allowed states to sue for damage to public resources like parks and beaches. But it’s still hard to prove the right to sue because climate damage often affects many people over long periods.
Successful cases must show real harm like flooded property, crop damage, or broken infrastructure. The harm must be clearly connected to the company’s pollution, not just general climate change. Courts are starting to accept that climate damage can be enough to allow lawsuits when people can prove specific companies caused specific harm.
Important Court Cases
Juliana v. United States (2015, judgment passed recently on March 2025) is the biggest federal climate case, where young people claim the government violated their constitutional rights. While facing legal hurdles, the case showed that climate change can be a real legal harm.
American Electric Power v. Connecticut (2011) went to the Supreme Court, where the Court said people could sue power companies for public harm but then dismissed the case because the EPA was already regulating pollution.
State courts have been more willing to hear these cases. Sher v. Exxon Mobil (2018) in Massachusetts was allowed to continue. California’s People v. BP (2018) was dismissed because the court said it was a political issue, but similar state cases are still moving forward.
Political View
Courts often dismiss climate cases by saying climate policy is a political question that should be decided by Parliament and the government, not judges. Similar to how the US Supreme Court in American Electric Power ruled, Indian courts also recognize that climate rules involve complex policy choices that courts shouldn’t make.
However, courts are starting to see the difference between broad climate policy and specific cases asking for money to pay for damages. Cases that focus on compensation rather than stopping pollution may avoid dismissal because they deal with traditional legal issues that courts can handle. This approach aligns with Indian legal principles where courts can award damages for specific harms while avoiding broad policy decisions.
Damages: Monetary Relief
Climate lawsuits ask for different types of help, mainly money damages and orders to stop harmful behavior. Money damages include property damage, costs to adapt to climate change, and lost income from climate impacts. Cleanup costs for protecting buildings and fixing environmental damage are common in municipal corporation cases.
Orders to stop pollution are more controversial because courts don’t want to make broad rules that might conflict with government regulations. Some cases ask for more specific help, like requiring companies to reveal climate risks or pay for protection measures – similar to how Indian courts have ordered disclosure in pollution cases.
Central vs. State Law Conflicts
Central environmental laws, especially the Environment Protection Act and Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, might prevent state courts from hearing pollution cases. Courts must decide whether central rules take over completely or if state laws can still apply. Just as the US Supreme Court’s American Electric Power decision showed regulatory displacement, Indian courts face similar questions about whether central environmental regulation replaces state common law remedies.
Recent cases examine whether comprehensive central climate rules prevent state damage claims or whether state laws address different parts of climate harm not covered by central legislation. This reflects the federal structure where both Centre and states have environmental responsibilities under the Constitution.
Future Outlook
Climate lawsuits continue to change as scientists get better at connecting specific climate damage to particular companies. Better ability to prove that certain companies caused specific harm strengthens the legal arguments. City cases seeking money for adaptation costs may be more successful than broader climate policy challenges.
The legal situation will likely see continued improvement in rules about who can sue, how to prove connection, and what remedies are available. As climate impacts get worse and scientific proof gets better, courts may increasingly recognize that companies can be held responsible for climate-related harm.
Conclusion
Climate change lawsuits against polluting companies represent a new area of law dealing with unprecedented challenges. While traditional legal rules face significant obstacles in addressing global, long-term problems like climate change, improving scientific understanding and court approaches suggest possible ways to hold companies accountable. Success will ultimately depend on courts’ willingness to adapt established legal principles to address the urgent realities of human-caused climate change while maintaining appropriate limits on judicial power in environmental governance.
By- Bhavika Samtani (Intern)