IN a landmark litigation, 450 people in Japan last week sued their government for “unconstitutional” inaction on climate change.
The complainants accuse the government of endangering their health and livelihoods because of its “grossly inadequate” efforts to address the climate crisis.
Each plaintiff is seeking 1,000 yen, or $6.5, in damages. A paltry sum, but the lead lawyer for the plaintiffs maintains that “the issue of the country’s responsibility” is more important than the financial reward.
The litigants stress that Tokyo’s targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 60 percent by 2035 and 73 percent by 2040 “fall significantly short” of the global reduction goals.
Moreover, they are not legally binding.
A professor monitoring climate cases in Japan acknowledges that the chances of a legal victory are slim, but “if the purpose… is to raise public awareness,” then it may succeed because of its “very relatable” messaging.
More than 2,500 climate lawsuits have been filed across the world, according to a BBC online article by Isabella Kaminski, citing databases run by Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. The number grows every year.
“These lawsuits are helping rewrite the public narrative on climate change and, in some cases, are resulting in a real shift in government and corporate policy — whether they win or lose.” Kaminski wrote.
In its 2024 annual report, the London School of Economics noted that 55 percent of 549 climate cases outside the United States favored the claimant against a company or a government agency.
A year earlier, the UN Environment Program was already onto the significant rise in climate litigation. “People are increasingly turning to the courts to combat the climate crisis, holding governments and the private sector accountable and making litigation a key mechanism for securing climate action and promoting climate justice,” said UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen.
What stands out in the UNEP report is the observation that “the voices of vulnerable groups are being heard globally.”
Children and youth, women’s groups, local communities and indigenous peoples have assumed “a prominent role in bringing these cases and driving climate change governance reform in more and more countries around the world,” it said.
“Notable cases have challenged government decisions based on a project’s inconsistency with the goals of the Paris Agreement or a country’s net-zero commitments,” UNEP said.
The involvement of a wider segment of society was validated by the international environmental watchdog, earth.org.
The group has listed 10 climate lawsuits it has been closely tracking. Among them are the cases filed in September 2020 by four Portuguese children and two young adults against 32 European governments. The largest climate case to be brought before the European Court of Human Rights, citing human rights violations, the plaintiffs allege that the governments’ inadequate climate action violated rights to life and privacy, and rendered them vulnerable to discrimination.
Earth.org also highlighted the 2024 case filed before the same court by a group of senior Swiss women who alleged that their government’s weak policies on greenhouse gas emissions intensified heat waves that put their life and health at risk.
Inadequate protection against greenhouse gas emissions was also at the core of the lawsuit that 14 youths in Hawaii brought against the Hawaii Department of Transportation.
In the Philippines, in what looms as a precedent-setting case, more than 100 villagers are suing British oil-and-gas producer Shell for contributing to climate change that spawned Super Typhoon Odette in 2021.
Odette battered central Philippines, killing more than 400 people and causing nearly $1 billion in damage.
The claimants accuse Shell of negligence, unjust enrichment and deception, saying that despite knowing that burning fossil fuels would cause severe climate disruption, it continued to boost production and spread misinformation.
The UNEP predicts climate cases brought by groups affected by climate change to further increase. It also anticipates “challenges in applying the science of climate attribution as well as a rise in ‘backlash’ cases against litigants which aim to dismantle regulations that promote climate action.”
Still, litigation can be a “powerful storytelling tool” that conveys the enormity of the climate crisis and the urgency to act on it.