On 30 June 2022 the LSE's Grantham Research Institute on
Climate Change and the Environment and The Centre for Climate
Change and Economics and Policy published their latest annual
report analysing global trends in climate litigation: "Global
Trends in Climate Change Litigation: 2022" (the Report).
Climate change litigation is growing in importance and scope.
Climate change-related cases have more than doubled worldwide since
2015. As the Report records, roughly 800 such cases were filed in
the 28 years between 1986 and 2014 but over 1,200 cases have been
filed in the subsequent 8 years to mid-2022, of which roughly 300
were filed in the last one and a half years.
This rise reflects both the growing urgency with which wider
society views the issues posed by climate change and a changing
legal environment. Both have enabled litigation to become an
instrument of pressure on governments, corporations and other
actors to walk their talk on climate change.
