[author]Gong Gu etc.

[content]

Empirical Analysis of Global Climate Change Litigation

Gong Gu

Zeng Deming

Master’s Student, Peking University Law School

 

 

Abstract: Since the entry into force of the Paris Agreement, the number of international climate change lawsuits has surged and developed rapidly. The relevant experiences offer important lessons for China. An empirical study of the global cases collected by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law shows that:

Global climate change litigation has undergone four major stages of transformation, occurs mostly in developed countries, and is concentrated in four main sectors such as energy and mining. The majority of cases are based on supervisory powers, with plaintiffs mainly being social organizations, while defendants are concentrated in government agencies and enterprises. Most cases adopt innovative public interest litigation approaches. The success rate in developed countries is significantly lower than that in developing countries, and such litigation commonly encounters difficulties such as interference with administrative authority, the challenge of concretizing harm, and the difficulty of proving causation.

The construction of China’s climate change litigation system should begin with fields where disputes are concentrated, impacts are significant, and conditions are mature. It should moderately expand the standing of plaintiffs, primarily target regulatory departments and major carbon emitters, and follow a developmental strategy that prioritizes administrative public interest litigation supplemented by civil public interest litigation. Existing laws should be fully utilized, but necessary innovations must be made to specific rules and liability mechanisms.

Keywords: Climate Change Litigation; Overview; Characteristics; Implications

 

Against the backdrop of concerted global action and cooperation among nations to address the threat of climate change, the judiciary plays an important and unique role. The Kunming Declaration of the World Environmental Judicial Conference (2021) proclaimed the need to “strengthen judicial responses to the global environmental crisis” and to “address climate change and its impacts,” promoting climate change mitigation and adaptation through the lawful adjudication of relevant cases and “advancing the realization of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals.” In 2023, the Supreme People’s Court issued the Opinions on Providing Judicial Services for the Active and Prudent Promotion of Carbon Peaking and Carbon Neutrality through the Comprehensive and Accurate Implementation of the New Development Philosophy (Fa Fa [2023] No. 5), which made comprehensive arrangements to “further give full play to the adjudicative functions of the people’s courts and provide judicial services for the active and prudent promotion of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality.”

However, environmental adjudication is specialized and complex, and effective implementation is by no means easy. As the most cutting-edge and complex aspect of environmental justice, climate change litigation remains an area of ongoing exploration worldwide. How to conduct such litigation both “actively” and “prudently,” and in an efficient manner, raises numerous issues requiring thorough study and cautious implementation. In this regard, international experience is indispensable.

To gain a comprehensive understanding of the global practice of climate change litigation, learn from advanced experiences, draw valuable lessons, summarize basic patterns, and explore optimal pathways, this paper conducts an analysis of all cases recorded from 1986 to 2024 in the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law database at Columbia University (hereinafter referred to as the “Sabin Database”), which is internationally recognized as one of the most comprehensive and authoritative repositories of climate change litigation cases. The study outlines the developmental trajectory, summarizes the basic situation, and provides analysis and discussion on several major issues closely related to China’s institutional development in this field, with the aim of offering references for the active, prudent, efficient, and standardized advancement of climate change litigation in China.

1. Overview of Global Climate Change Litigation

As a new type of litigation still in its formative stage, the term “climate change litigation” is broad in scope and lacks an authoritative definition of its connotation and extension, with inconsistent usage in practice. In general, it can be divided into two categories: a broad sense and a narrow sense. The broad definition includes all litigation involving climate change factors, but its scope is excessively wide, leading to overlaps with existing categories of litigation. The narrow definition, on the other hand, limits itself to lawsuits that directly make claims related to climate change mitigation or adaptation, or that explicitly aim to protect environmental public interests. This definition, however, is too restrictive, and given the still limited number of such cases worldwide, it hampers comprehensive understanding and systematic analysis of climate change litigation as an emerging phenomenon.

To overcome the drawbacks of both definitions, and with reference to internationally recognized approaches, this paper expands upon the narrow definition by including three additional circumstances: (1) cases that explicitly raise issues of climate change; (2) cases that cite climate change as a significant cause of action; and (3) cases that have an evident impact on climate change mitigation or adaptation. Based on this intermediate-level conceptual framework, we collected and analyzed relevant cases accordingly.

This approach offers three advantages. First, it aligns with the case inclusion standards of the Sabin Database, conforms to mainstream international practice, and maximizes the utility of its contents. Second, it echoes the case classification criteria of “Climate Change Response” established in the Trial Classification and Statistical Norms for Environmental and Resource Cases (Provisional) (Fa [2021] No. 9) issued by the Supreme People’s Court, thereby enhancing the relevance of the study’s findings to China’s institutional development. Third, it enables the inclusion of major cases closely related to climate change, facilitating a comprehensive understanding of the overall situation while avoiding omissions of important information.

Based on the above criteria, as of December 31, 2024, we collected and organized all 2,913 cases included in the database, examined them one by one, and excluded cases that lacked judicial reasoning or were otherwise unsuitable for in-depth analysis—such as those withdrawn by plaintiffs, dismissed, settled out of court, or pending judgment—as well as those occurring between states or within regional organizations, which have limited reference value for domestic legal institution-building. Ultimately, 932 valid cases were obtained. This paper analyzes these 932 cases according to five dimensions: year of acceptance, country of jurisdiction, sectoral distribution, litigation basis, and composition of parties (plaintiffs and defendants).

Through these five dimensions, we can gain an intuitive understanding of the developmental stages and driving factors of global climate change litigation, the differing attitudes of countries toward such cases, and the major sectors where such litigation arises. More importantly, from the perspective of institutional reference, the analysis clarifies the legal bases and party compositions underpinning these cases—namely, in a global context where substantive laws addressing climate change remain generally underdeveloped, which fields, which plaintiffs, under what legal grounds, are bringing what types of lawsuits against which defendants.

These questions are precisely those that China’s still nascent and exploratory climate justice system must urgently address and clarify in order to “establish and improve mechanisms for adjudicating carbon-related cases” and to “accelerate the accumulation of judicial experience in carbon-related litigation.” They constitute key areas of understanding necessary for the systematic development and rapid advancement of China’s climate change judicial framework.

1.1 Number of Cases by Year

As shown in Figure 1, the emergence of global climate change litigation is relatively recent. Taking the U.S. case City of Los Angeles v. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (1986) as the starting point, fewer than forty years have passed up to 2024. Based on the trend curve, the development can be roughly divided into four stages.

The first stage (1986–2004): the initial exploratory phase of climate change litigation. During this period, the number of cases was extremely small—only 16 cases over 19 years. Even in 2004, which saw the highest number, there were merely four cases, while in ten of those years there were none at all. This indicates that during this stage, climate change litigation was rare, and only a handful of plaintiffs, out of their keen awareness of climate change issues, made bold and incidental attempts within the existing legal framework.

The second stage (2005–2013): the phase of gradual development. In these nine years, a total of 271 cases were recorded, averaging about 30 per year, with the highest number being 52 cases in 2011 and the lowest being nine in 2006. Although the distribution of cases was uneven, the overall trend was one of gradual increase. Compared with the first stage, where litigation occurred only in a few countries, climate change lawsuits in this stage emerged in 16 countries, indicating the beginning of a certain degree of international breadth.

The third stage (2014–2019): the phase of rapid growth. During these six years, 381 cases arose, with litigation types and regions becoming more diverse. In terms of litigation types, there appeared a variety of forms, including civil tort litigation represented by the Peruvian case Luciano Lliuya v. RWE AG (2015); administrative public interest litigation represented by the U.S. case Juliana v. United States (2015); and civil public interest litigation represented by Milieudefensie et al. v. Royal Dutch Shell plc. (2019). In terms of geographical distribution, cases covered 31 countries across six continents (excluding Antarctica).

The fourth stage (2020–2024): the phase of decline and adjustment. Starting in 2020, the number of cases dropped significantly from the 2019 peak of 91 cases, but the overall number remained considerable. Excluding 2023 and 2024—years with incomplete data because many cases had not yet entered substantive trial proceedings—the number of cases from 2020 to 2022 remained high, averaging 75 per year.

1.2 Number of Cases by Country

As shown in Table 1, climate change litigation has been brought in 41 different countries, including 20 developed countries (48.8%) and 21 developing countries (51.2%). At first glance, the distribution between developed and developing countries seems fairly balanced. However, in terms of the number of cases, the imbalance is striking: developed countries accounted for 861 cases in total (92.4% of all cases), while developing countries accounted for only 71 cases (7.6%). Overall, climate change litigation has been more widely attempted within the legal systems of developed countries. By contrast, in 13 countries—including Indonesia, the Philippines, and Kenya—only one case has been filed to date, indicating that such litigation is still in its preliminary exploratory phase in most developing nations.

1.3 Sectors of Distribution

The distribution of global climate change litigation by sector is categorized according to the scope of issues at the core of each dispute. As shown in Figure 2, cases are mainly concentrated in four major sectors: energy and minerals (324 cases), greenhouse gas emissions and management (147 cases), infrastructure and construction (107 cases), and roads and transportation (73 cases). Together, these 651 cases account for roughly 70% (69.8%) of the total. Other areas involved—such as species protection, advertising and expression, forestry and grasslands, water and wetlands, information disclosure, climate protest, disaster response and compensation, agriculture, and the oceans—constitute only about 30.2% of all cases.

1.4 Bases of Litigation

As shown in Figure 3, the bases for climate change litigation include 18 specific rights: supervisory power, regulatory power, the right to life and health, property rights, the right to a healthy environment, the right to information, the right to participation, personal liberty, freedom of expression, occupational freedom, freedom of religion, the right to climate stability, the right to sustainable development, the right to a livable environment, among others.

Notably, in nearly 80% of cases (723 cases, 77.6%), plaintiffs filed lawsuits based on the right of supervision over administrative acts, seeking either to compel carbon-emitting enterprises to bear liability for climate-related damages in accordance with the law or to urge governments to adopt more active greenhouse gas reduction measures. By contrast, lawsuits based on traditional private rights such as property rights and the right to life and health totaled 79 cases (8.5%).

These two categories—together accounting for nearly 90% (86.1%) of all cases—constitute the overwhelming majority of climate change litigation. The remaining hundred or so cases involved a wide array of rights—15 types in total—ranging from environmental rights and human rights to traditional constitutional rights and emerging notions such as the “right to climate stability,” reflecting a clear “rights-turn” trend.

1.5 Composition of Plaintiffs and Defendants

As shown in Figure 4, plaintiffs in climate change litigation mainly fall into four categories: social organizations, individuals, government agencies, and enterprises. Among them, social organizations—including environmental NGOs, civic associations, local residents’ committees, foundations, regional alliances, industry associations, and research centers—constitute the majority, with 539 cases (57.8%). Individual citizens rank second, with 161 cases (17.3%). In many countries (such as the United States), government agencies may, in accordance with law, bring “civil actions” to enforce compliance against violators; such “enforcement lawsuits” total 137 cases (14.7%), ranking third.

In addition, enterprises themselves have actively initiated 92 lawsuits (9.9%) to protect their interests and seek judicial relief—mostly challenging the legality or reasonableness of government measures regulating greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, in the context of climate change, lawsuits filed by natural entities (such as animals, plants, and ecosystems) as special plaintiffs have also emerged; three such cases have been recorded.

As shown in Figure 5, defendants in climate change litigation primarily include government agencies (or their officials), enterprises, individual citizens, social organizations, and schools. Among them, government agencies are the predominant defendants, involved in 789 cases—accounting for as high as 84.7%. This means that from the perspective of China’s litigation classification, the vast majority of climate change lawsuits would fall under the category of “administrative litigation” (i.e., “citizens suing the government”). Next are enterprises, involved in 109 cases (11.7%); individual citizens as defendants appear in 26 cases (2.8%); social organizations in seven cases; and even schools in one case. These circumstances indirectly reflect the complexity of climate change litigation.

1.6 Success Rates

It should be noted that the success rate here refers to the proportion of cases in which the party representing environmental or climate interests and advocating for stronger climate action prevailed. While this party is typically the plaintiff, it is not always so. In cases where corporate plaintiffs—the principal bearers of climate obligations—filed suits to evade or lessen their climate responsibilities, their losses are categorized here as successes (for the climate cause), and vice versa.

As shown in Table 2, among the total 932 cases, 325 were successful, yielding a success rate of 34.9%, while 607 were unsuccessful, with a loss rate of 65.1%—a clear pattern of more losses than wins. The success rate in developed countries was 32.8%, far lower than that of developing countries, which stood at 60.6%.

1.7 Reasons for Success and Failure

The reasons for success or failure summarized here are derived from the reasoning sections of judicial opinions and reflect the factors that led judges to affirm or reject the claims advanced by parties representing environmental and climate interests. Since judges often provide multiple lines of reasoning within a single case—and a few cases were excluded for being idiosyncratic or statistically insignificant—the total number of reasons does not equal the total number of cases.

The reasons for success provide an intuitive reflection of the circumstances and causes under which courts are most likely to support climate-related claims, as well as the mature domains where the need for judicial relief is high and adjudication is most feasible. As shown in Figure 6, the 325 successful cases worldwide can be categorized under seven main reasons for success.

The reasons for failure reveal the judiciary’s concerns and doubts regarding climate change litigation as a novel form of legal action, as well as the shortcomings and gaps that currently exist in judicial practice. These issues represent key challenges in constructing a climate change litigation system. As shown in Figure 7, through detailed analysis, the author summarizes thirteen major reasons courts have given for dismissing or rejecting climate change lawsuits.

2. Summary and Key Analysis of the Characteristics of Global Climate Change Litigation

2.1 Parallel Development with International Climate Conventions and National Climate Legislation

Against the backdrop of global cooperation to address climate change becoming a major focus and public concern of our times, the intermittent progress and unsatisfactory effectiveness of greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction across countries have made litigation an important means and effective tool for various stakeholders to promote climate governance and push for active government action. The development of climate litigation has shown distinct stages corresponding to the evolution of international climate conventions and national legislation.

The first stage (1986–2004) was the period of initial exploration of climate change litigation. During this time, climate issues were noticed only by a few individuals and organizations, without wide attention or recognition from the international community and the public media. A handful of pioneers sought to “break the ice” through litigation to draw attention from their own governments and the international community to climate change issues, thereby stimulating legal reforms — their symbolic significance outweighed institutional construction.

It is particularly noteworthy that although the signing of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (hereinafter referred to as “the Convention”) in 1992 provided a basic institutional framework for the international legal system on climate change, the principled nature of its provisions limited its guidance for judicial practice. Consequently, none of the 16 cases in this first stage were based on the Convention. The most influential case in this period, Massachusetts v. EPA (2003), was filed under the U.S. Clean Air Act and centered on the interpretation of the term “air pollutants” as defined in the Act.

The second stage (2005–2013) saw a doubling of the number of global climate change lawsuits, which benefited from the increasingly complete international legal framework represented by the Convention and the Kyoto Protocol, as well as from the accelerated pace of global climate action and the establishment of cooperative principles such as the precautionary principle, the principle of sustainable development, and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities.

Built upon the structure of the Convention, the Kyoto Protocol set specific, binding, and quantifiable emission reduction targets for 37 industrialized nations, economies in transition, and the European Union. With Russia’s accession and subsequent ratification, the Protocol entered into force, achieving the “hard law” status under international law.

As the connection between anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and the intensification of the greenhouse effect became widely recognized, and the differentiated emission reduction responsibilities between developed and developing countries due to their differing stages of industrialization gained general acceptance, the global goal of “stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that prevents dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system” became a politically shared objective. This consensus effectively freed climate litigation from the constraints of scientific uncertainty and transformed climate change from a purely scientific problem into a socio-political one, thereby activating related lawsuits.

For example, in the landmark case Urgenda Foundation v. State of the Netherlands (2013), the Urgenda Foundation, together with 886 Dutch citizens, sued the Dutch government for its failure to effectively control greenhouse gas emissions, arguing that the government, fully aware of the dangers of climate change, had exposed its citizens to such risks. The plaintiffs demanded that the government reduce national carbon emissions by 25%–40% compared to 1990 levels by 2020, a request that was supported by the district court.

The third stage (2014–2019) — the vigorous development of global climate litigation — was closely tied to the historic breakthrough of the Paris Agreement.

Unlike the Kyoto Protocol, which adopted a traditional “top-down” mandatory reduction mechanism, the Paris Agreement innovatively introduced a “bottom-up” system of nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to achieve quantified global GHG control targets. The principle of treaty compliance is a cornerstone of international law; once a state’s NDC is determined and publicly announced, it becomes an international commitment with binding force on the contracting party and is incorporated into the mandatory review mechanism known as the “global stocktake.”

By establishing national goals guaranteed by national credibility and international reputation, the Paris Agreement shifted the focus from the scientific question of “whether greenhouse gas emissions accelerate climate change” to the legal question of “how to fulfill NDCs on schedule.” This shift concretized the legal object of climate change litigation, alleviated the difficulties of proving causation and specifying damages, and realized the “second leap” — transforming climate change from a socio-political issue into a legal issue.

In this context, both international and domestic climate legislation experienced remarkable growth, while litigation demonstrated its proactive role, leading to a series of groundbreaking judicial decisions worldwide. Lawsuits based on tort liability, human rights, environmental rights, and supervisory rights achieved varying degrees of success, and courts increasingly relied on the Paris Agreement and domestic climate laws instead of traditional legislation.

For instance, in Neubauer et al. v. Germany (2020), young plaintiffs from Germany, Bangladesh, and Nepal challenged the Federal Climate Change Act enacted in 2019, arguing that its targets and measures were insufficient to protect the fundamental rights of current and future generations in Germany from the climate crisis, and that it failed to fulfill Germany’s obligations under the Paris Agreement.

The German Federal Constitutional Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and creatively articulated the concept of “Intertemporal Guarantees of Freedom,” aiming to prevent the burden of emission reduction from being unilaterally shifted onto future generations. This decision prompted the German government to amend the Federal Climate Change Act, raising its CO₂ reduction target from 55% to 65% by 2030, to 88% by 2040, and achieving carbon neutrality by 2045 — five years earlier than originally planned.

The fourth stage (2020–2024) saw the overall number of climate change lawsuits remain high but with a downward trend. This was largely due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic since 2020. This trend also illustrates the volatility and fragility of climate change litigation, which is susceptible to international political, economic, and social circumstances. As a result, within the process of global climate governance, such litigation often plays a supplementary and supportive role rather than a dominant one.

2.2 Diversity of National Climate Litigation Practices

The United States, with 682 cases, stands far ahead of all other countries (see Table 1), exceeding the total number of cases in all other jurisdictions combined. This dominance is largely attributable to its long-standing tradition of resolving social and policy disputes through judicial litigation. However, beyond the U.S., climate change lawsuits have also been widely adopted — with 250 cases across 40 countries — demonstrating the universal and distinctive function of litigation in climate governance. In contexts where legislation is underdeveloped and law enforcement is passive, the public has turned to courts for relief, expecting judges to apply laws creatively, expand interpretations of existing legal norms, and drive broader social and policy transformations.

For instance, in South Korea, four constitutional lawsuits have been filed since 2020 challenging the Framework Act on Carbon Neutrality and Green Growth for Coping with the Climate Crisis (hereinafter referred to as the Carbon Neutrality Act). Because the four cases share identical claims, legal bases, and reasoning, they were consolidated by the Constitutional Court of Korea for joint adjudication.

Although the cases have not yet been concluded, their close connection to human rights issues prompted the National Human Rights Commission of Korea in 2023 to issue a statement titled Opinion on the Relationship Between the Climate Crisis and Human Rights. The statement emphasized that the South Korean government has a fundamental duty to protect and promote human rights — including the rights to life, food, health, housing, self-determination, and education — in the context of the climate crisis. It argued that the Carbon Neutrality Act fails to provide concrete support measures for vulnerable groups and lacks emission reduction targets beyond 2030, potentially leading to the infringement and exploitation of the basic human rights of climate-vulnerable populations and future generations, and therefore urged the government to establish additional GHG reduction goals.

In developing countries, there have also been numerous groundbreaking and widely influential cases. A notable example is Save Lamu et al. v. National Environmental Management Authority and Amu Power Co. Ltd. (2016) in Kenya.

In this case, the Kenyan local government decided in 2013 to construct its first coal power plant on the coast near the historic town of Lamu to promote economic and industrial development. A social organization named “Save Lamu,” along with five other plaintiffs, filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of the environmental impact assessment (EIA) license issued by the National Environmental Management Authority to Amu Power Co. Ltd. The plaintiffs argued, first, that the EIA process lacked public participation, and second, that the project would exacerbate climate change. After careful examination of the facts, the court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. This judgment was groundbreaking in incorporating climate change considerations into the EIA process for the first time. Invoking the precautionary principle, the court affirmed the causal link between the coal power project and its negative climate impacts, and underscored the importance of public participation, declaring that such participation is at the heart of any EIA process. Since the defendants had failed to conduct public consultations as required, the EIA was deemed invalid.

Overall, whether in developed or developing countries, courts — when faced with climate change lawsuits characterized by scientific uncertainty, political implications, and value-based judgments — have proactively exercised judicial activism. Within the permissible bounds of judicial discretion, they have actively responded to climate-related claims, demonstrating the unique characteristics and strengths of the judiciary in climate governance.

Judicial neutrality allows both parties to present and defend their arguments through evidence and reasoning on relatively equal footing, enabling judges to introduce principled and progressive developments in climate law and policy while upholding core legal values. The ex post nature of judicial adjudication, meanwhile, provides a mechanism for the public to challenge and supervise legislative and executive decision-making, ensuring that citizens’ political rights are duly respected and safeguarded under the rule of law. The social function of courts also requires them not to lag behind the times or obstruct the legitimate needs of the people.

As the Brazilian Supreme Federal Court stated in PSB et al. v. Brazil (2020), responding to climate change is not solely the responsibility of the legislative and executive branches — the judiciary must also take action to prevent regression in environmental protection.

2.3 High Concentration of Climate Litigation Focus and Gradual Expansion of Scope

The focal points of global climate change litigation are highly concentrated, and the areas of attention show a clear polarization trend (see Figure 2). The energy and mineral sectors have the largest number of cases, reflecting and embodying the fact that fossil fuel use remains the greatest source of greenhouse gas emissions. According to a report by the United Nations Environment Programme, the extensive use of fossil fuels—including coal, oil, and natural gas—within the energy system accounts for over 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions and nearly 90% of all carbon dioxide emissions.

Disputes in this field mainly focus on three major issues: the rationality of environmental impact assessment (EIA) documents related to mineral resource development and energy utilization projects that fail to consider climate change factors; the legality of administrative permits for coal, oil, and natural gas projects that generate substantial carbon emissions; and damages to public environmental interests caused by relevant mining and energy projects. Specifically, traditional energy sources still constitute the majority of such cases. Among all 324 cases, 61 involved coal, 64 involved oil, and 94 involved natural gas, accounting for 67.6% in total. This indirectly reflects the potential role of related litigation in restricting traditional energy development and promoting energy transition.

For instance, in the 2021 South African case Sustaining the Wild Coast NPC and Others v. Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy and Others, four social organizations filed for an injunction in the South African High Court to prohibit Shell Group from conducting geological surveys along the country’s east coast for oil exploration purposes during 2021–2022.

The court ruled that there were reasonable concerns that such exploration would encourage fossil fuel extraction and have adverse impacts on climate change, cultural customs, and marine protection. The court accepted the plaintiffs’ argument that energy development would lead to more unpredictable weather and frequent extreme climate events, as well as expert opinions advocating that fossil fuel reserves should remain largely unexploited to limit global warming to within 1.5°C. Ultimately, the injunction was granted.

Cases concerning greenhouse gas emissions management rank second, mainly targeting legal and policy documents as well as government actions concerning emissions control. Common topics include the effectiveness of existing climate adaptation acts and whether government-proposed mitigation goals and measures sufficiently protect public environmental rights. Unlike the geographically widespread distribution of energy and mineral cases, greenhouse gas management cases are concentrated mainly in developed countries—128 out of 147 cases, or 87.1%.

Developed countries generally have stronger environmental governance capacity and greater resilience in responding to climate change. They also bear heavier international obligations, while citizens in these countries tend to be better educated and more concerned about climate change impacts, expecting governments to take more proactive measures. The soundness of their legal systems further contributes to this trend.

By contrast, developing countries typically have lower levels of economic and industrial development, weaker technological capacity, and historically lower cumulative greenhouse gas emissions. Under the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities,” they enjoy special treatment such as financial assistance, technology transfer, and longer compliance transition periods in addressing global environmental issues. As a result, their emission management systems are relatively moderate and less ambitious than those of developed countries, leading to fewer related cases. Nonetheless, a smaller number of cases does not imply the absence of disputes or inaction.

For example, in the 2017 Nepalese case Shrestha v. Office of the Prime Minister et al., the plaintiff accused the government of failing to adequately address climate issues, thereby violating citizens’ constitutional rights to a dignified life and a healthy environment, as well as breaching Nepal’s commitments under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement. The court upheld the plaintiff’s claims, ordering the government to enact a new climate change law aimed at mitigating and adapting to climate impacts, reducing fossil fuel consumption, and promoting low-carbon technologies.

Cases in less frequent fields nonetheless reveal the expanding scope and evolving direction of global climate rule-of-law issues. Among them, the three most representative categories are “species protection,” “advertising and expression,” and “climate protest.” “Species protection” cases are filed on the grounds that defendants’ actions harm legally protected wildlife populations, showing that climate litigation has extended its function toward safeguarding animal rights.

These cases occur mainly in the United States—of 67 cases, 66 were American and only one occurred in France. A typical case is National Wildlife Federation v. National Marine Fisheries Service (2021, USA), in which the plaintiff challenged the Columbia River Power System for failing to comprehensively assess the impact of climate change on salmon and steelhead, thereby increasing the extinction risk of species protected under the Endangered Species Act. Although the parties eventually reached a temporary compromise, the case successfully incorporated the impact of climate change on wildlife into the environmental assessment of hydropower projects.

“Advertising and expression” cases mainly involve the widely discussed phenomenon of “greenwashing,” referring to lawsuits against corporations and financial institutions for exaggerating their environmental achievements. For instance, in the RCC Ruling on Arla “Climate Neutral Milk” (Netherlands, 2022), the Dutch Advertising Code Committee held that advertising milk as “climate neutral” would mislead ordinary consumers into believing the product had no climate impact, violating the Environmental Advertising Code’s requirement of “faithful representation,” and therefore ordered the removal of the misleading claim.

“Climate protest” cases mainly concern the legality of radical protest actions taken by citizens or social organizations. For example, in EH v. Queensland Police Service (Australia, 2020), two climate protesters were convicted for using locking devices to block a railway leading to a coal mine. Overall, the reach of climate litigation has extended to evaluating the effectiveness of emission reduction measures, the authenticity of environmental claims, and the legality of expressive actions.

2.4 Diversity of Legal Bases in Climate Litigation, with Emphasis on Oversight and Regulation

Differences in national legal systems and legal cultures have led to rich diversity in the legal foundations and institutional approaches of climate change litigation. Further summarizing the 18 specific rights listed in Figure 3, these bases can be categorized into five major types, as shown in Figure 8.

First, the right of supervision held by social organizations, citizens, and certain government agencies. In many countries, constitutions and laws grant citizens and social groups without formal regulatory authority the right to supervise government bodies responsible for environmental governance or enterprises with environmental obligations—by filing lawsuits to examine whether they act lawfully and adequately in fulfilling environmental duties, implementing environmental policies, and exercising environmental powers appropriately. Some countries, such as China and Brazil, grant specific state organs (e.g., procuratorates) similar rights to sue.

Supervisory rights help legalize the exercise of environmental authority and are a necessary condition for its legitimate and reasonable use. In Sheikh Asim Farooq v. Federation of Pakistan etc. (Pakistan, 2018), Farooq accused the government of failing to plant, manage, and maintain trees and forests in Punjab Province, thereby violating citizens’ constitutional rights to life, dignity, and access to public recreational areas. The court, citing constitutional, forestry, and international law provisions, affirmed the government’s legal duty to protect forests and mitigate climate impacts, and directed local authorities to formulate urban tree-planting policies.

Such cases total 723, accounting for 77.6% of all cases, indicating that the primary function of climate litigation lies in legal supervision and enforcement promotion, consistent with the fundamental principle of the rule of law: “public interest under legal mandate and protection by law.” Among these, “subrogated enforcement lawsuits” against enterprises number 58 (8.0%), while “supervisory enforcement lawsuits” against government agencies or their officials total 659 (91.1%), forming the overwhelming majority. This reflects that governments, bearing primary responsibility and leadership in climate response, are the main targets of supervision.

Second, traditional civil rights concerning personal and property interests. It should be noted that because the rights to life, physical health, and inviolability of private property are regarded as basic human rights in many countries, the classification in Figure 8 depends primarily on whether the plaintiff’s legal claim is grounded in tort law or human rights law, whether the lawsuit is civil or human rights–based, and whether it is heard by ordinary or human rights courts. Accordingly, there are 12 cases based on personal rights and 67 based on property rights—together representing only 8.5% of all cases—indicating the difficulties of applying traditional civil litigation to the climate domain.

Third, environmental rights. The term “environmental right” here refers to rights claimed by plaintiffs that directly concern the “environment,” which can be divided into substantive and procedural categories. “Substantive environmental rights” refer to individuals’ rights to a suitable environment, with 35 related cases—52.2% of environmental rights cases. However, as Table 3 shows, plaintiffs’ understandings and expectations of what constitutes “suitable” vary significantly, allowing for further subdivision into two types:

One could be labeled as Low-level “healthy environment” cases, which aim for a “healthy” or “non-polluted” environment—merely requiring the climate system to remain stable enough to avoid severe ecological deterioration that would endanger human life, living conditions, or freedom. These constitute the majority of environmental rights cases (28 cases). In Inhabitants of San Anterito v. Colombian (Colombia, 2015), for instance, “suitable environment” was interpreted as one with adequate water supply facilities.

The other could be viewed as High-level “pleasant environment” cases, which define suitability in terms of “livability,” “sustainability,” or “ecological balance.” Beyond requiring a stable and non-harmful environment, these cases demand that climate and ecological systems actively support human survival and development. Such cases are fewer—only 7 in total. “Procedural environmental rights” derive from citizens’ political rights to access information and participate in decision-making, encompassing environmental information access and participation in environmental decision-making. These total 32 cases—47.8% of all environmental rights cases, slightly fewer than substantive ones—with 27 concerning information access and only 5 concerning participatory rights.

Fourth, human rights. In recent years, using human rights frameworks to promote climate action has sparked a new wave of climate litigation worldwide, achieving “limited success.” Human-rights-based climate litigation relies on instruments such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, advocating intergenerational equity and equal legal protection. Main claims include: ensuring that personal freedom is not severely restricted by climate change; safeguarding the right to private and family life; protecting cultural and spiritual life from disappearing due to climate impacts; securing freedom of trade, business, and occupation; and protecting freedom of expression and protest in the context of climate activism.

For example, in Citizens’ Committee on the Kobe Coal-Fired Power Plant v. Japan (Japan, 2018), the plaintiffs argued that greenhouse gas emissions would infringe on equality before the law and fundamental human rights such as life, health, and property.

Similarly, in Company Workers Union of Maritima & Commercial Somarco Limited and Others v. Ministry of Energy (Chile, 2021), workers accused the government of failing to adequately involve labor groups in its aggressive decarbonization plans, thereby violating their human rights to labor freedom, freedom of association, and equal legal protection.

Fifth, the environmental regulatory power vested in government agencies to file lawsuits against violators and hold them legally accountable through judicial proceedings. There are 47 climate “regulatory lawsuits” of this kind. For example, in Commonwealth v. Exxon Mobil Corp. (United States, 2019), the Massachusetts Attorney General sued ExxonMobil for deceiving investors and consumers by failing to timely and fully disclose climate-related risks. Although the case was dismissed due to the misapplication of law, such litigation still exerts positive pressure on corporations to include climate risks in disclosure frameworks and to emphasize waste reduction and carbon mitigation in internal governance and operations.

2.5 Diversity of Plaintiffs: Different Goals and Claims

From the perspective of plaintiffs, the majority of climate change lawsuits are filed by social organizations (see Figure 4), reflecting the extensive and collective nature of climate change impacts, as well as the necessity and enthusiasm for public participation. This also demonstrates the need to “abandon the path dependence on a governance-oriented mindset” in climate governance.

Public interest litigation initiated by social organizations can amplify the public’s voice and power, mobilize more social resources in addressing climate change, and fully exert social influence to achieve the goals of supervising governments and carbon emitters and jointly combating climate change. Typical examples include the 2022 case Finnish Association for Nature Conservation and Greenpeace Nordic v. Government of Finland and the 2021 South African case Sustaining the Wild Coast NPC v. Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy.

Individual citizens rank second among plaintiffs, which not only reflects the growing direct impact of climate change on citizens’ lives but also represents an expansion of climate change litigation toward the protection of individual rights.

For instance, in the globally influential 2023 case Children of Austria v. Austria, a group of Austrian children filed a collective lawsuit before the Austrian Constitutional Court, claiming that parts of the Federal Climate Protection Act were unconstitutional because the Act failed to set any emission reduction targets after 2020. The lack of binding greenhouse gas reduction goals led to persistently high carbon emissions in Austria, posing an imminent threat to the well-being of current and future generations, and violating the constitutionally guaranteed rights of children and the fundamental principle of equality before the law. Although the court eventually dismissed the case on the grounds that it was a “political question” to be decided by the legislature rather than the judiciary, it was still a meaningful attempt by citizens to defend climate rights through legal action.

Government agencies rank third among plaintiffs, highlighting the necessity and feasibility of strengthening climate enforcement and policy implementation through litigation. However, since governments already possess strong enforcement powers, the legitimacy and necessity of government institutions filing public interest lawsuits are often questioned, resulting in relatively few such cases and lower success rates.

Cases in which carbon-emitting enterprises serve as plaintiffs rank fourth, reflecting the complexity of climate issues and the diversity of values in climate litigation. For example, in the 2014 U.S. case John R. Laws on Rock & Oil, Inc. v. California Air Resources Board, the plaintiff argued under the National Environmental Policy Act and the California Environmental Quality Act that the California Air Resources Board failed to conduct adequate climate impact assessments when amending standards for on-road heavy-duty diesel trucks, thereby depriving the plaintiff of the right to adapt to legislative changes. The court ruled in favor of the plaintiff.

It can thus be seen that climate change litigation is not solely a judicial movement led by social organizations, citizens, and government agencies to hold carbon-emitting enterprises accountable. These enterprises can also—and indeed do—actively use judicial means to protect their own interests. By hearing such cases and allowing both plaintiffs and defendants to present their arguments in court, the judiciary demonstrates its concern for climate action. However, parties advocating for active climate action do not necessarily possess unquestionable legitimacy in court.

In addition to the above four categories, there are also a few cases in which natural entities (such as animals or plants) appear as plaintiffs, all of which occurred in the United States: Colorado River Cutthroat Trout v. Salazar (2009), Coralations v. National Marine Fisheries Service (2012), and Colorado River Ecosystem v. State of Colorado (2017).

Although these cases were filed in the name of natural entities, the actual work of filing, responding, and collecting evidence was performed by social organizations, and all ended in defeat. In Colorado River Ecosystem v. State of Colorado, for example, the federal court refused to recognize the Colorado River ecosystem as a “person” with rights. Nevertheless, the social organization representing the ecosystem viewed the lawsuit as a meaningful attempt to introduce the principle of the rights of nature into legal scholarship, aiming to provide an effective tool to address the ecological degradation of the Colorado River.

In fact, whether filing lawsuits in the name of natural entities to expand the influence of cases, or rejecting such suits on the grounds that plaintiffs must be “persons” who have suffered “actual injury,” both are common phenomena in U.S. environmental citizen litigation. This represents a distinctively American “legal tradition” and does not possess universal or broadly applicable significance.

2.6 Defendants Are Highly Concentrated: Mainly Governments and Enterprises

In contrast to the diversity of plaintiffs, the defendants in climate change litigation are highly concentrated, with administrative lawsuits targeting government agencies (or their officials) constituting the overwhelming majority (see Figure 5). This means that, according to the classification of litigation types in China, “administrative litigation (including administrative public interest litigation)” accounts for most climate change lawsuits.

The fundamental reason for this lies in the overall design of current climate legislation and the unique position and role of governments in addressing climate change. On one hand, the quantitative temperature control targets established by the Paris Agreement primarily apply to states, requiring each national government to make a self-declared, “bottom-up” Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to the international community, thereby making governments the main legal obligors and responsible parties for climate action. On the other hand, the global and universal nature of climate change impacts makes it impossible for individual citizens alone to play a decisive role—state will and national action are indispensable for undertaking responses commensurate with the scale of the problem.

Against the backdrop of global cooperation to tackle climate change, national obligations are undergoing a historical transformation—from a “modern” worldview focused on human society’s domination of nature to a “postmodern” worldview centered on risk awareness. Government agencies must adhere to the precautionary principle, placing climate change response and greenhouse gas emission control at the forefront of economic and social development.

As shown in Table 4, there are 43 cases that challenge whether governments’ current decarbonization actions are sufficient to achieve international treaty goals on time. In 22 countries, courts have already heard cases concerning whether states have violated emission reduction obligations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) or the Paris Agreement.

For instance, in the 2020 Australian case Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action Incorporated v. Environment Protection Authority, the Land and Environment Court of New South Wales, for the first time, allowed the introduction of climate evidence in a case alleging government failure to perform statutory duties. Based on the expert testimony of Professor Penny Sackett and the Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) she relied upon, the court concluded that “the threat posed by climate change to the environment is of such magnitude and significance that it constitutes an environmental harm requiring response,” and therefore the New South Wales Environment Protection Authority must set environmental quality objectives, guidelines, and policies to ensure environmental protection from the effects of climate change.

This case signifies that the quantitative temperature control targets of the Paris Agreement can be interpreted by judges as a national obligation to prevent danger, thereby compelling administrative agencies to actively implement their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

In lawsuits targeting carbon-emitting enterprises, it is noteworthy that most defendants are not ordinary emitters but rather large-scale “carbon giants.” Two-thirds of anthropogenic carbon emissions in today’s atmosphere come from these major emitters, yet few national laws clearly define their emission reduction responsibilities. The lack of legal rules and regulatory mechanisms results in the largest emitters bearing the least responsibility—an evident injustice that continuously places them in the defendant’s seat.

Plaintiffs, represented by citizens and social organizations, have been eager to bring lawsuits in the hope of compelling these carbon giants to assume responsibilities proportional to their actual impacts on the environment and public welfare. For example, in the 2019 Dutch case Milieudefensie et al. v. Royal Dutch Shell plc., Friends of the Earth Netherlands and more than 17,000 citizens accused Shell of violating its duty of care under Dutch law and its duty of prudence under human rights protection due to its contribution to climate change. By expansively applying the “unwritten duty of care” under Section 162 of Book 6 of the Dutch Civil Code, the court ordered Shell to reduce the emissions from all its activities (including both its own and end-use emissions) by 45% compared to 1990 levels by 2030—making Shell the first company in history to be held legally liable by a court for emission reduction obligations arising from climate change.

Since this landmark case, climate change lawsuits against carbon giants have proliferated worldwide, involving major corporations such as Exxon Mobil Corp., British Petroleum p.l.c., Murphy Oil USA, Inc., and Pacific Gas and Electric Co. This development is especially significant given that conventional legislation and enforcement in the climate field often hesitate to act due to concerns about the influence of large corporations—a hesitation that has been a major cause of the slow progress in climate rule of law.

2.7 Overall, Climate Litigation Has More Losses Than Wins, with Divergent National Attitudes

The overall success rate of climate change litigation is roughly three wins to seven losses (see Table 2). This is largely due to the exploratory nature of climate change litigation as an emerging type of lawsuit and the insufficient legal basis available for adjudication. It also indicates that the current level of maturity of climate change litigation remains low and that further progress must proceed with caution.

From a national perspective, developed countries have a large number of cases (861) but a low success rate (32.8%), whereas developing countries have relatively few cases (71) but a much higher success rate (60.6%), revealing a clear contrast between the two (see Table 2). This phenomenon is intriguing and may be explained by differences in each country’s legal foundation and its functional positioning of climate change litigation.

In terms of legal foundation, developing countries often lack a comprehensive legal system and a judicial tradition that emphasizes strict adjudication in accordance with the law. Against the backdrop of existing laws being insufficient to effectively address emerging climate change issues, various sectors in these countries tend to adopt an open and inclusive attitude toward climate change litigation. As developing countries are themselves among the primary victims of climate change, they also hope to promote social and political transformation through litigation in order to improve their climate situation. Consequently, developing countries not only have a higher success rate but also demonstrate greater breakthroughs and innovations in judicial decisions, reflecting a higher degree of judicial activism.

Typical examples include India’s 2013 case In re Court on its own motion v. State of Himachal Pradesh and others before the National Green Tribunal and Panama’s 2023 case Callejas v. Law No. 406.

Conversely, developed countries emphasize strict adherence to the rule of law in adjudication, value the separation and balance of judicial power and other powers, and tend to take a cautious stance toward climate relief claims where damages are difficult to specify and causal relationships are hard to prove precisely. This is particularly true in cases where the plaintiffs’ claims lack direct legislative support and where most countries have not codified substantive rights such as the right to a healthy environment.

From a functional perspective, the mature and stable political systems of developed countries, as well as their advantageous positions in the international climate order, mean that they generally do not expect litigation to bring about major social or political transformation.

Therefore, although developed countries account for a large number of climate change lawsuits, relatively few cases actually result in victories for the plaintiffs, and courts tend to adopt a more conservative or restrained approach during adjudication. These characteristics are especially pronounced in the United States. Although the United States ranks first in the world with a total of 682 climate change lawsuits, only 202 of these cases have resulted in favorable judgments for the plaintiffs, yielding a success rate of less than 30%. Upon closer examination, most plaintiffs in these cases rely on traditional legal doctrines—such as the public trust doctrine, due process, or the right to access information under the Freedom of Information Act—to seek remedies. These cases largely represent modest extensions of conventional litigation pathways rather than entirely new lawsuits based on emerging rights.

2.8 Reasons for Success and Failure in Climate Litigation Vary, with “Legality” as the Key Factor

According to the seven major reasons summarized in Figure 6, cases in which the plaintiffs asserted claims with clear legal basis—especially those that could be linked to specific systems such as environmental impact assessments—accounted for 218 cases, representing nearly 70% of successful cases. Cases won on the basis of evidence amounted to 22, while the remaining 68 cases, in which substantive judgments or interest balancing were made regarding whether the defendant’s actions aggravated climate impacts, constituted rights infringements, or violated international obligations, accounted for approximately 20%.

The reasons for losing are more diverse. Among the 13 reasons summarized in Figure 7, cases in which the court examined whether the plaintiff’s claims or the defendant’s actions complied with legal provisions totaled 157. Adding the 99 cases in which environmental impact assessments were deemed lawful, the total reached 256 cases, accounting for approximately 40%. Cases dismissed on procedural grounds, such as evidence, jurisdiction, statute of limitations, standing, and justiciability, totaled 320, accounting for over 50%. Cases in which substantive judgments were made regarding damage, causation, or interest balancing numbered only 50, less than 10%.

This indicates that, as an emerging type of litigation, the focus of success or failure in climate change litigation lies primarily in the extent to which the claims are supported by law, namely, their “legality.” Claims without procedural obstacles that can be effectively integrated with existing legal systems (e.g., environmental impact assessments) are most likely to gain judicial support. Conversely, courts rarely issue judgments solely based on the actual consequences and impacts of climate change in the absence of clear legal provisions. In other words, the essence of climate change litigation remains a “legal review” rather than a “factual review.”

Experience Summary and Implications for China

In the “post-Paris Agreement” era, national actions to address climate change have gradually expanded. Climate change litigation has moved beyond its initial exploratory stage, in which political “icebreaking” was the primary function, to possess the basic conditions for regular and widespread implementation. It is practiced by an increasing number of countries and has become an indispensable part of climate rule-of-law development. For China, climate change litigation aligns with the country’s “dual carbon” strategy, fully leveraging judicial functions to safeguard the orderly achievement of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals, demonstrating clear significance and necessity, as well as feasibility for substantial development.

At the same time, the immaturity and fragility of climate litigation should not be overlooked. Externally, it is highly affected by international situations and changes in economic and social conditions, exhibiting significant volatility. Internally, it is constrained both by the lag in global climate legislation and its transmission effects on domestic law—resulting in weak legal basis, insufficient legislative supply, and limitations in fundamental conditions such as litigation standing, defendant scope, evidentiary rules, and burden of proof—and by the global, cumulative, long-chain, and multi-variable characteristics of climate impacts, which create scientific uncertainties and policy-oriented tendencies in litigation models and pathway selection.

Regardless of the model or path, administrative agencies remain the principal actors in climate change response, playing a leading role, while the judiciary primarily serves an auxiliary function, providing supervision and supplementation. The predominance of losing cases also reflects the cautious attitude of courts toward climate issues and the gap between social expectations for proactive climate action and the relatively conservative realities of the rule of law.

Overall, global climate change litigation is still in a continuous “trial-and-error” exploratory phase, requiring careful and prudent implementation, appropriately integrated into the national legal system for climate change response, rather than advancing in isolation, so as to properly serve the overall climate rule-of-law construction rather than merely achieving isolated success.

Consequently, the functional positioning and implementation strategy of climate change litigation in China should consider domestic realities and the overall arrangement of national climate rule-of-law construction, adopting coordinated planning, precise targeting, hierarchical advancement, and steady development, thereby exploring a climate litigation model and development path with Chinese characteristics that both follow general principles and common rules observed internationally and fit Chinese practice and national conditions. Based on international experience and China’s national conditions, the construction of a Chinese climate change litigation system should focus on the following five aspects:

First, regarding defendants, the focus should be on state organs responsible for climate change response and carbon-emitting enterprises with significant climate impacts.

On one hand, due to the wide-ranging impacts of climate change and the complexity of related matters, relying solely on individual citizens or social organizations cannot reverse the trend of climate deterioration. Climate action must be elevated to the level of national will, fully leveraging state power through the establishment of regulations, industrial restructuring, transformation of development modes, and guidance of technological development. This requires active organization and promotion by relevant government entities, and litigation can serve as a “forcing” mechanism to ensure their active fulfillment of responsibilities.

In this regard, China has institutional advantages. Given that governments at all levels and relevant departments are generally bound by the national “3060” dual carbon targets, related litigation can, to a certain extent, circumvent the difficulty of proving causation between the defendant’s actions and the resulting harm. Instead, the focus can shift to evaluating whether the government’s measures constitute full performance under existing conditions, whether they are sufficient to achieve established tasks, and whether they are conducive to realizing the “dual carbon” goals. Such evaluations can rely on technical means or quantitative assessments under current technological conditions, providing relatively objective and convincing conclusions, thus greatly reducing processing difficulty and enhancing judicial feasibility, credibility, and effectiveness. This also implies that administrative (public-interest) litigation should be the focus and key component of climate litigation.

On the other hand, including carbon-emitting enterprises as defendants, compelling them to consider the climate impact of their operations as an important decision-making factor, incorporating green development, energy saving, carbon reduction, and climate justice into business objectives and concepts, and reforming corporate governance systems are equally essential. Given the scarcity of judicial resources and the need to balance climate rights with economic and social development, in a reality where it is impossible to prosecute and hold every violator of carbon or climate obligations accountable, prioritization should be based on the severity of climate impact. Large enterprises with significant climate impacts and substantial financial and technical capacity should be first subjected to litigation supervision, ensuring they bear appropriate obligations and responsibilities.

This approach ensures environmental effectiveness, maximizes impact with limited effort, and requires that those capable—who often benefit most from climate impacts—bear more responsibility, promoting a balance between economic interests and social responsibility, and avoiding common distortions in traditional environmental public-interest litigation, such as “picking soft targets,” “fearing hard bones,” or “using a cannon to kill a mosquito,” ensuring litigation resources are effectively utilized.

Second, regarding plaintiffs, the scope should be expanded, and standing should be relaxed, fully leveraging the roles and strengths of procuratorial organs, social organizations, individuals, and enterprises.

International practice shows that different types of plaintiffs have varied goals and claims, focusing on diverse areas, each with positive significance and irreplaceable roles. In China, environmental public-interest litigation plaintiffs are currently dominated by procuratorial organs and environmental protection organizations, with the latter having only civil public-interest litigation rights and a narrow scope, which needs expansion.

On one hand, environmental organizations should be granted administrative public-interest litigation rights to strengthen external supervision of corresponding government entities through litigation. On the other hand, individual citizens should be granted public-interest litigation rights to achieve genuine public participation. Expanding plaintiff scope does not mean unconditional litigation rights for anyone; legislation can and should establish reasonable rules on fields, causes, scope, interests, preliminary evidence, and so forth to prevent “abusive litigation,” and guide lawsuits toward specific fields and circumstances critical for achieving the national “dual carbon” strategy, exerting more precise judicial influence.

Procuratorial organs should have their role in climate change litigation more explicitly recognized and further strengthened. Their engagement in public-interest litigation optimizes judicial power allocation, improves the administrative litigation system, and promotes the construction of a rule-of-law society, representing a unique advantage of China’s public-interest litigation system.

In recent years, procuratorial organs have prioritized environmental and resource protection, and ecological civilization promotion, accumulating rich experience and capacity in using litigation to strengthen environmental governance, which should be fully applied to the climate field. Through issuing procuratorial recommendations or initiating administrative public-interest litigation, combined with the system of administrative heads appearing in court and “court appearance indicators incorporated into lawful administration evaluation,” more significant supervisory effects on administrative agencies dominating climate change response can be achieved.

Legislation should explicitly grant procuratorial organs standing in climate change litigation, addressing shortcomings in professional development encountered in current procuratorial environmental public-interest litigation, and granting priority in litigation sequence and evidence collection. Regarding government agencies responsible for climate regulation, although they serve as important plaintiffs in some countries, this is often due to weak administrative power or as a routine law enforcement tool, and does not align with China’s context, thus blind replication is unnecessary.

Third, regarding the scope of accepted cases, priority should be given to feasible cases, distinguishing primary and secondary, and gradually expanding from mature areas with favorable conditions and urgent national needs for achieving “dual carbon” targets.

As of March 2025, the Sabin database records four Chinese cases—“Friends of Nature v. State Grid Gansu Electric Power Company Environmental Pollution Liability Dispute,” “Friends of Nature v. State Grid Ningxia Electric Power Company Environmental Pollution Liability Dispute,” “Beijing Fengfu Jiuxin Marketing Technology Co., Ltd. v. Zhongyan Zhichuang Blockchain Technology Co., Ltd. Service Contract Dispute,” and “Beijing Grassland Alliance Environmental Protection Promotion Center v. Xingyi Shangcheng Power Generation Co., Ltd. Civil Public-Interest Litigation”—mainly concentrated in the fields of energy and minerals, and greenhouse gas emission management, which is commendable but still has room for further expansion.

Drawing on international experience, reasonably defining the scope of climate change litigation in China plays a crucial “valve” role, clarifying case characteristics and key difficulties within China’s environmental judicial system, and responding legislatively and judicially to other institutional bottlenecks in a manner consistent with China’s national, social, and legal conditions.

According to the Supreme People’s Court’s Types and Statistical Norms for Environmental Resource Cases (Trial), China’s climate change litigation can currently focus on energy and minerals, greenhouse gas emission management, infrastructure construction, roads and transportation, forestry carbon sinks, and climate-related biodiversity and species protection, with gradual, appropriate expansion after accumulating mature adjudication experience, adhering to the principle of prioritizing major issues, highlighting focus, proceeding step by step, and orderly development.

Fourth, regarding litigation approach and pre-litigation procedures, the focus should be on “enforcement” or “supplementary” litigation, promoting law and policy implementation, making law enforcement and compliance the primary objectives, and avoiding litigation primarily focused on damages compensation, which faces difficulties in quantifying damage, proving causation, and restoring status quo.

On this basis, the construction of a climate change litigation system should follow the principle of administrative public-interest litigation as the main route and civil public-interest litigation as a supplement. On one hand, it should urge administrative organs with greater power and responsibility in achieving the “dual carbon” goals to place climate response in a more prominent position in economic and social development, integrating it into local government decision-making. On the other hand, it should encourage enterprises to increase investment in low-carbon technologies, optimize production processes, improve resource efficiency, and promote fundamental reforms in corporate governance and business philosophy, shifting from passive compliance to proactive action.

To achieve these goals while balancing economic development and social stability, pre-litigation procedures in public-interest litigation should possess general characteristics such as openness, transparency, multi-party participation, and judicial presence, as well as special attributes distinct from traditional judicial mechanisms, including initiative, coordination, and non-finality.

Fifth, regarding adjudication basis and liability mechanisms, a balance between conservatism and innovation should be maintained.

Existing legal provisions should be fully utilized, while special rules should be developed regarding standards of proof, methods of proof, and burden of proof, and active exploration of liability mechanisms consistent with climate case characteristics and emphasizing climate effects should be undertaken.

International experience shows that developed countries have numerous and wide-ranging climate cases, but judges emphasize strict legal adjudication, innovating only within the scope of traditional legal rights, and maintaining strict attitudes toward proactive climate claims, resulting in high failure rates. Developing countries, though having fewer cases, tend to adopt a more open and supportive approach to proactive climate action, linking case handling with the creation and protection of emerging environmental and climate-related rights, resulting in higher success rates and more bold and innovative rulings.

These differences ultimately stem from variations in legal traditions and national conditions, affecting each country’s functional positioning of climate change litigation. Regardless of the country, whether claims have legal basis—i.e., “legality”—remains the fundamental standard and key factor determining litigation outcomes.

In China, the legislative process on climate change is accelerating, with specialized legislation expected, and under the integrated strategy of energy saving, pollution reduction, and carbon reduction, existing environmental laws contain numerous provisions, systems, and measures applicable to climate governance, providing foundational legal basis for climate litigation and should be fully utilized.

However, specific rules should be adapted and innovated according to the characteristics of climate cases. For example, to address the cumulative and wide-ranging impacts of climate change, traditional causation rules difficult to meet in such cases need not be rigidly adhered to; standards of proof can shift toward probability-based assessment, methods of proof can allow indirect inference, and burden of proof can explore presumption and inversion arrangements to reduce plaintiff evidentiary pressure and difficulty in proof.

Regarding liability mechanisms, traditional models should not be strictly followed; mechanisms should be adapted to climate case characteristics and national strategic needs, adopting responsibility approaches that reduce adverse impacts and promote effective proactive responses. For example, in India’s In re Court on its own motion v. State of Himachal Pradesh and others, the Netherlands’ Urgenda Foundation v. Government of the Netherlands, and Milieudefensie et al. v. Royal Dutch Shell plc., courts reached agreements with local governments or carbon-emitting enterprises to set specific emission reduction targets, with court oversight of implementation, fully exercising judicial supervision functions and making substantive contributions to greenhouse gas reduction, which is worthy of reference.

 

The original text was published in the China Legal Review, 2025, Issue No. 2, Observation Column, with permission for reprint granted by the WeChat public account “China Legal Review.”

Proofreader: Ji Weidong