"2018 in Climate Liability: When a Trend Became a Wave", 30 Dec 2018

Climate liability lawsuits exploded onto the world stage in 2018—a year that began with New York City suing five oil majors and ended with France facing a potential lawsuit for failing to make climate progress and the European Parliament announcing a probe into ExxonMobil’s decades-long climate misinformation campaign.

From litigation to investigations, the strategies for holding the world’s biggest carbon polluters, including governments and corporations, accountable for climate damage are diverse and growing. They include suits to hold fossil fuel companies responsible for the climate damage done by burning their products and force them to pay for the costs of those damages...

The year [2018] was marked by a proliferation of legal action against fossil fuel companies and governments around the world. “What was remarkable in 2018 was the rapid acceleration in the number of cases,” Muffett [president of the Center for International Environmental Law] said...

Environmental law experts say the year ahead will bring both key decisions in pending cases and will bring important evidence to the public...

2019 could also see the first lawsuit filed by nations most vulnerable to climate change against large carbon-emitting nations and/or against fossil fuel companies. The Pacific island nation of Vanuatu is asking other small island states to join it in a climate liability lawsuit...