Shell facing first UK legal claim over climate impact of fossil fuels

Victims of a deadly typhoon in the Philippines have filed a lawsuit against oil and gas company Shell in UK courts, seeking compensation for what they say is the company's role in intensifying the storm.

About 400 people were killed and millions of homes were damaged when Typhoon Paradise hit parts of the Philippines just before Christmas 2021.

Now a group of survivors is suing Britain's largest oil company for the first time, claiming it played a role in making the typhoon more likely and more destructive.

Shell says the claim is “baseless”, as is the suggestion that the company had unique knowledge that carbon dioxide emissions are causing climate change.

Typhoon Paradise, known as Odetta, has become the most powerful storm to hit the Philippines in 2021.

Wind gusts of up to 170 mph (270 km/h) destroyed nearly 2,000 buildings and displaced hundreds of thousands of people, including Trixie Elle and her family.

She was selling fish on the island of Batasan when a storm struck, forcing her to leave her home and she barely escaped with her life.

“So we have to sail in the middle of big waves, heavy rains and strong winds,” she told BBC News from the Philippines.

“So my father said that we will hold hands, if we live, we will survive, and if we die, we will die together.”

Trixie is now part of a group of 67 people who have brought the claim, believed to be the first case of its kind against a major British oil and gas producer.

In a letter sent to Shell before the lawsuit was filed, the survivors' legal team said the case was being taken to the UK courts because that's where Shell was based, but that it would apply Philippine law because that's where the damage occurred.

The letter claims that Shell is responsible for 2% of the world's historical greenhouse gas emissions, according to Carbon Majors calculations. oil and gas production database.

The letter said the company “has made a significant contribution” to human-caused climate change, making the typhoon more likely and more severe.

The survivors' group further claims that Shell has a “history of climate misinformation” and has known since 1965 that fossil fuels were the main cause of climate change.

“Instead of changing their industry, they stay in their business,” Trixie Elle said.

“It is very clear that they prefer profit over people. They choose money over the planet.”

Shell denies that oil and gas production contributed to this separate typhoon, and also denies any unique knowledge about climate change that it kept to itself.

“This is a baseless claim and will not help solve climate change or reduce emissions,” a Shell spokesman said in a statement to BBC News.

“The suggestion that Shell had unique knowledge about climate change is simply not true. This problem and solutions have been part of public debate and scientific research for many decades.”

That view is supported by several environmental campaign groups, which say scientific advances now make it much easier to link individual extreme weather events to climate change and allow researchers to tell what impact warming gas emissions had on a heat wave or storm.

But proving to a court's satisfaction that the harm caused to people by extreme weather events is caused by the actions of specific fossil fuel producers can be challenging.

“This is traditionally a high bar, but in recent years both science and the law have lowered the bar significantly,” says Kharge Narulla, an attorney specializing in climate law and litigation who is not involved in the case.

“This is, of course, a test case, but this is not the first case of this kind. So this will be the first time that the British courts will be convinced of the nature of this whole science of attribution from a factual point of view.”

The experience of other jurisdictions is mixed.

In recent years, attempts to bring cases against major U.S. oil and gas producers have often failed.

In Europe, campaigners in the Netherlands won a major case against Shell in 2021, when the courts ordered Shell to cut absolute carbon emissions by 45% by 2030, including those emissions that arise from the use of its products.

But last year this decision was overturned on appeal.

The court ruled that there was no legal basis for the specific reduction target, but it also upheld Shell's duty to mitigate dangerous climate change through its policies.

The UK claim has already been filed in the Royal Court, but it is only the first step in a case brought by Filipino survivors, with more details expected by the middle of next year.