The Grantham Research Institute at LSE has published its Global trends in climate change litigation for 2026, the annual stock-take of the field authored by Joana Setzer and Catherine Higham. Following on from our piece last year on the 2025 snapshot, and from the superb presentation Kate Higham gave on developments in this area at our AGM in December, we bring members our take on the highlights of this year's report.
The headline numbers
More than 3,600 climate cases have been filed in courts across 62 countries, with 249 new cases filed in 2025, and first-ever filings recorded in Grenada, Guatemala, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Singapore and Zambia. The US remains by far the largest jurisdiction with 2,078 cases, followed by Brazil (354), Australia (193), the UK (156) and Germany (121). The report is structured around five themes: maturity; expansion and innovation; pushback; complexity; and implementation and impacts.
The field is expanding quickly, so what follows is a focused commentary on the developments most relevant to our investor members.
"Climate litigation continues to evolve at a rapid pace. We’re seeing consolidation of legal norms in some areas – such as state responsibility to act – even as we see the expansion of the field to encompass new actors and new types of legal arguments. Understanding the dynamics within the field and its implications for global climate governance remains as critical as ever."
Catherine Higham, Grantham Research Institute
Corporate climate cases: building on past losses, a new wave in Europe
For corporate defendants, the key shift is one of threshold. Since 2020, of the 30 systemic polluter pays and corporate framework cases that have received a significant decision on admissibility, around half have been allowed to proceed beyond initial procedural hurdles, including in the Italian Court of Cassation's Greenpeace Italy v. ENI and the New Zealand Supreme Court's Smith v. Fonterra. No claim has yet produced a final, upheld damages order, but the door to the merits is now demonstrably open.
"In recent years systemic polluter pays and corporate framework cases have surmounted early procedural hurdles."
Global Trends in Climate Change Litigation: 2026 Snapshot
Building on Lliuya v. RWE and the appellate reversal in Milieudefensie v. Shell, three European cases warrant attention: the Pakistan Climate Cost Case against RWE and Heidelberg Materials, the Casquejo (Odette) Case against Shell in the English High Court, and a follow-up action by Milieudefensie against Shell focused on new oil and gas investments and drawing on the ICJ's July 2025 advisory opinion. Each refines earlier theories to target established, attributable harm or specific forward-looking conduct.
Climate claims: from greenwashing to greenhushing
Climate-washing cases are now the most common type involving corporate actors, with over 65% of decided cases ruled in favour of claimants. The Paris Judicial Court's October 2025 decision in Greenpeace France v. TotalEnergies is the first ruling to find a major oil multinational liable for misleading environmental claims, anchored in the 2024 EU Directive on Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition and its requirement that climate claims rest on "clear, objective, publicly available and verifiable commitments and targets". Together with the Dutch KLM judgment and recent ASIC actions in Australia, a discernible bar is emerging for credible transition communications.
The flip side is "greenhushing": companies retreating from commitments to reduce litigation exposure. The Brazilian IDEC v. GOL proceedings show this carries its own risks, with follow-on claims pursued despite the withdrawal of an offset programme. The key point is that litigation risk turns on the quality and integrity of commitments, not their existence or absence.
Real estate, pensions, the consistency gap, and shareholder derivative actions
Two threads are particularly relevant:
First, a US class action against Cushman and Wakefield's employee pension fund alleges the firm applies climate risk practices for clients but not for employees' retirement savings. This "consistency gap" theory, targeting inconsistency rather than inaction, is now visible across transition risk and climate-washing cases alike.
Second, shareholder derivative actions following extreme weather are evolving. Bark v. Pizarro against the directors of Edison International combines a failure-to-adapt claim with a misleading disclosure claim, alleging that proxy statements from 2021 to 2024 misrepresented the company's wildfire mitigation and climate adaptation efforts. Unlike the prospective claims in ClientEarth v. Shell or ACCR v. Santos, these cases proceed on the basis of actual losses already realised, which may materially strengthen their prospects.
Three areas of expansion to watch
The report flags three emerging frontiers: carbon dioxide removal and storage infrastructure (with cases in Louisiana, New Zealand, Finland and the EU contesting both siting and reliance on removals to meet targets); data centres, particularly in Ireland, the UK and US; and the climate–plastics interface, with US state regulators bringing actions against Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and ExxonMobil over alleged deception about recycling.
Just transition litigation risk
A more diffuse but potentially significant risk lies in non-climate-aligned cases. The Business and Human Rights Centre's tracker now records 95 just transition cases globally, brought largely by workers, Indigenous Peoples and frontline communities, alleging environmental degradation (77%), water impacts (80%) and breaches of free, prior and informed consent (55%). Recent French and UK case law is increasing the viability of transboundary claims, particularly around critical minerals. For investors with exposure to transition supply chains, this is a serious but underestimated risk vector.
Beyond win or lose
"Impacts can be material… or discursive… they can affect different types of actors in different ways, and they can unfold across radically different timescales."
Global Trends in Climate Change Litigation: 2026 Snapshot
This year's report notes that judgments alone are a poor proxy for impact. Adverse climate litigation correlates with reductions in firm value, particularly for major fossil fuel producers; favourable judgments in government framework cases lift renewable energy stock prices and depress coal stock prices; and financial regulators, led in Europe by the ECB and NGFS, now treat litigation as material climate-related financial risk.
The Vanguard settlement of February 2026, in which the asset manager committed to withdraw from climate coalitions without admitting liability, shows that the most consequential effects of litigation often arrive without a final judgment.
What this means for our members
For companies, key takeaways are that corporate climate liability has crossed a critical procedural threshold; well-evidenced transition plans reduce risk while silence does not; the perimeter of defendants now includes real estate, state-owned enterprises and supply-chain actors; and adverse rulings produce measurable financial effects.
For financial institutions, the turning-off-the-taps category is growing, financed emissions are becoming legally traceable (with Milieudefensie v. ING a key forthcoming test), and regulatory enforcement, exemplified by the ECB's actions against ABANCA and Crédit Agricole, is now a parallel and material track of accountability.
"Climate litigation is now a permanent feature of the global governance landscape. The question is not whether it will matter, but how much, in whose favour and at what pace."
Global Trends in Climate Change Litigation: 2026 Snapshot
IIGCC will continue to engage with members on what these developments mean for portfolios and stewardship, and we will be hosting a member webinar with the Grantham Institute to unpack the report in October.