"The Guardian view on climate change: see you in court - Editorial", 10 Sep 2017

...Fossil-fuel companies, hydrocarbon billionaires and their allies, particularly in the west, have for years now been funding a massive and sophisticated campaign to mislead voters about the environmental harm caused by carbon pollution...[A] landmark study released earlier this year revealed 50 corporations account for more than one-fifth of all carbon released into the atmosphere since the industrial revolution began. The groundbreaking research not only helps establish legal accountability for climate change, it also weakens any corporate defence of wilful blindness...

Three major legal actions will test such thinking. First in the Philippines, where it is being determined whether polluters violated the human rights of Filipinos for their role in creating the conditions for Typhoon Haiyan, the strongest ever tropical storm to make landfall, which left more than 7,000 dead. Second in Germany, where a German utility company is being sued for costs associated with glacial lake flooding in Peru. Last in the US, where two California counties are suing 37 oil, gas and coal companies, claiming they knew their products would cause sea-level rise and coastal flooding, but failed to reduce their greenhouse gases.

Fossil-fuel companies should be held accountable for the effects of climate change...Climate litigation...is also an important way of reframing the climate crisis as a human rights emergency.