The year ahead: climate change deception, plastics and youth-led cases
In 2024, more defendants were added to climate tort lawsuits around the country, plastics took off and kids kept fighting to cement some big wins even as some of their cases hit snags.
Happy New Year, everyone! Last year was a big one for the newsletter and the universe of climate change and energy law. You may notice if you’re reading in a browser that this is the first post on a new, custom domain: www.landmark.earth. Honestly, I’m pretty jazzed to have that up and running just in time for the proverbial fireworks in this space.
I hope you had a relaxing and rejuvenating holiday season, and I thank you for reading along. If you like what you’ve been seeing, please do consider sharing it with a friend! And if you have a tip on an upcoming case or legal argument that should be highlighted, please reach out!
Now, to our regular programming…
For longtime watchers of the numerous climate change accountability lawsuits that have been filed by American cities and states over the past near decade, 2024 was an important year.
This coming year won’t be the last chapter in the long story of climate change litigation that has been told over the past 10 years. The results of these cases could take years or longer to flesh out, just like litigation.
But 2025 could still prove to be explosive, with several of those climate tort cases moving closer to a trial and plenty of legal drama on deck as legal strategies and theories evolve.
"Despite Big Oil’s best efforts, the many lawsuits seeking to hold them accountable for their longstanding climate deception continue marching toward trial,” Alyssa Johl, general counsel and vice president of legal for the Center for Climate Integrity, told Landmark.
“Communities across the country are closer than ever to presenting the evidence of Big Oil’s deception to juries, and as those cases advance, we should expect to see additional state and local governments take fossil fuel companies to court."
Let’s take a look at where these cases stand and dive into one of the more interesting developments of the past year: it’s not just Big Oil companies getting sued anymore.
Electric utilities are welcomed to the party
Back in October, a lawsuit filed by an Oregon county made some waves when it added the local electric utility, NW Natural, to its list of defendants that allegedly contributed to climate change and should be forced to pay damages and for abatement.
The lawsuit by Multnomah County, home to Portland, had already grabbed plenty of attention when it was filed in July 2023. While most climate tort lawsuits focus broadly on climate change harms, Multnomah County focused its complaint on a 2021 heatwave that killed 69 people in the county. It also included, for the first time, the consulting firm McKinsey as a defendant.
Legal experts said that the addition of NW Natural as a defendant was groundbreaking, though, since no gas utility had ever been named in a similar case. The utility was targeted for misrepresenting the harms associated with using natural gas that is often advertised as safer than oil — since the gas itself is a potent climate warmer and releases carbon dioxide when burned.
It showed that the pool of would-be defendants vulnerable to climate change deception claims could be deep.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if more gas utilities are targeted,” Jeffrey B. Simon, the lead attorney for Multnomah County told Landmark in an interview last year, noting that he hadn’t done an analysis of other utilities specifically.
“They made significant misrepresentations about the nature of the environmental impact of their activities and those misrepresentations were significant,” he added of NW Natural.
NW Natural has previously said that the addition of the company to the lawsuit was an attempt to divert attention from legal and factual flaws in the case, and that it would defend itself in court.
Dave Anderson, the policy and communications manager for the Energy and Policy Institute, told Landmark that the utility industry’s alleged climate deception is a “parallel track” to what was seen with major oil companies.
According to Anderson’s research, electric utilities knew about climate change as far back as 1968, but continued to invest heavily in fossil fuel power generation anyway. Since 1988, the industry has also worked to sow doubt about climate science and block legal limits on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.
“I think this case is probably going to be the start of a trend of new litigation that more closely targets misinformation from utilities and then also the damages caused by electric and gas utilities,” Anderson said.
While none of the broader climate deception cases have yet had a trial date set, several have survived motions to dismiss and are headed that direction. Cases filed by Massachusetts and Honolulu are the furthest along, and the Supreme Court is set to consider a challenge to a lower court ruling allowing the Honolulu case to go to trial on Jan. 10.
The major oil company defendants have generally argued that climate change is best addressed by the political branches of government, not the courts. They have also said the cases revolve around interstate greenhouse gas emissions, which implicates federal courts.
Kids notch big wins — and big losses
In addition to those climate tort actions, numerous lawsuits have been filed by young people against governments over climate change. Just before the start of the New Year, kids in Montana successfully defended their landmark win against the state’s top court.
Earlier in 2024, youth in Hawaii reached a landmark settlement in their case in that state, which Landmark covered in its inaugural story.
But kids who sued the federal government in the most famous of the youth-led cases — Juliana v. United States — also suffered a key loss in 2024, when the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals shot down the case that has been hotly contested from the start. The court determined the youth didn’t have standing to sue, since they were seeking only a declaration that their rights are being violated by pro-fossil fuel policies and not an injunction forcing specific behavior.
(A similar case against the EPA was dismissed shortly thereafter.)
The youth in that case are appealing the decision to the Supreme Court.
Plastics
The past year was a memorable one for plastics-related litigation, and Landmark has covered those cases fairly extensively — including their First Amendment implications.
But here’s what we’re watching as 2025 gets underway: After California filed its lawsuit against Exxon, and the state’s attorney general told Landmark that more major oil companies may be next, will more companies end up in the cross hairs?
And, will more states join in the hunt?