At the start of this new year, the landscape of climate litigation is one of both promise and frustration. Litigation has become one of the most important arenas defining what climate responsibility means in practice. It is where scientific evidence about attribution, risk, and harm can be translated into enforceable obligations, and where communities can still prove that climate harms are neither abstract nor acceptable.
In 2025, courts across the world issued bold decisions that recognized climate change as a human rights emergency, affirmed legal duties to protect the climate for present and future generations, and held companies and governments accountable for environmental harm. At the same time, US courts have been slowed by obstruction and procedural gridlock amidst an intensifying political backlash against climate action, including direct federal efforts to block state-level accountability laws and lawsuits.
As we look ahead to 2026, here are four things I expect we will see.
1. A new generation of cases inspired by international advisory opinions
In 2026, international climate and human rights rulings will increasingly shape what happens in national courts, and our legal systems will be stronger because of it.
Historic opinions by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and International Court of Justice (ICJ) last year are already being cited by litigants and courts, and 2026 is likely to see a wave of new cases that explicitly invoke them, framing climate litigation beyond technical compliance to a question of justice and legal obligation for health, dignity, and intergenerational equity.
We are just starting to see the influence of these opinions. Youth plaintiffs who spent a decade blocked in US courts have turned to the Inter-American human rights system. European litigants are citing the ICJ opinion to expand constitutional and biodiversity claims. And in Africa, civil society organizations have initiated advisory proceedings seeking guidance on state obligations to protect communities from climate harms.
In 2026, I will be looking out for:
- More domestic courts referencing international advisory opinions to interpret constitutional and human rights duties.
- New cases brought in countries, particularly in the Global South, as litigants rely on the ICJ and Inter-American advisory opinions to frame new claims around rights, responsibility, and harm.
- Growing pressure to move beyond recognizing rights and begin enforcing real remedies, including putting earlier landmark rulings into action.
2. Long-awaited movement of US accountability cases
For years, climate accountability cases in the United States have been caught in procedural purgatory. Fossil fuel companies have repeatedly tried to derail cases by forcing them into federal court, invoking preemption arguments, and delaying discovery.
Despite the best efforts of the current administration, that defensive wall has been cracking. State supreme courts and federal judges have repeatedly refused to shut these cases down, and trial courts in states like Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island, California, and Hawaiʻi have allowed core deception and consumer-protection claims to proceed. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this trend rightfully continues.
In 2026, the most important development to watch is whether these cases finally move into substantive discovery, evidentiary hearings, and trial.
This matters because people deserve to have their cases heard on the evidence. These cases are about what companies knew, what they said, what they funded, and how their actions contributed to real harm in the world. In 2026, US courts will either begin to engage fully with the merits of these cases or allow the gap between international climate law and US accountability to widen even further.
3. Promising new legal theories tested in the courts
I expect to see rapid growth of new legal theories addressing the wide-ranging harms that communities are facing in light of climate change.
In the United States, courts are beginning to grapple with cases that link fossil fuel deception to rising home insurance premiums, cases that connect individual deaths to climate intensified extreme heat, and state-level climate superfund laws designed to recover the public costs of adaptation and climate related loss and damage. . These are testing how traditional consumer protection, wrongful death, and public finance laws apply in a warming world. These are testing how traditional consumer protection, wrongful death, and public finance laws apply in a warming world.
New legal approaches are also emerging internationally. Courts in Europe, Latin America, and parts of Africa are seeing cases that seek compensation for climate related losses, that argue for proportional liability based on a company’s share of global emissions, and that use constitutional and human rights protections to demand remedies for climate harm.
At the same time, international courts are also shaping new legal pathways by recognizing duties to protect future generations and the legal relevance of historical emissions.
In 2026, we should expect to see:
- More claims that tie specific climate damages to particular companies rather than to climate change in the abstract.
- New lawsuits that focus on financial harm, including rising insurance costs and property losses.
- More cases that ask courts to define how climate damages should be valued and repaired.
Together, these new legal theories (and many more that we have yet to see) are expanding how courts can respond to real climate harms and decades of fossil fuel deception.
4. A growing wave of legal pushback against climate action
The final major trend is one we cannot ignore: the growing body of litigation aimed at delaying, weakening, or dismantling climate action itself.
Globally, roughly a quarter of newly filed climate-related cases now involve arguments that are not aligned with climate goals, many of them in the United States. These include challenges to ESG, disclosure requirements, renewable energy development, and state-level accountability laws.
In the United States, this pushback has become unusually explicit. The federal government has sued states to block climate superfund laws and polluter-pays litigation. It has attempted to freeze or cancel climate funding programs. It has supported strategies designed to manufacture doubt about climate science and undermine regulatory authority. At the same time, fossil fuel interests are pushing for liability waivers that would shield polluters from responsibility for climate harms and close the courthouse doors to communities seeking justice.
In 2026, we should expect:
- More lawsuits aimed at blocking renewable energy deployment, disclosure rules, and climate-aligned finance.
- More “ESG backlash” cases weaponizing fiduciary duty, antitrust law, and federal preemption to challenge climate and ESG policies.
- Continued litigation over the legality of state-level climate liability laws.
- Attempts by the fossil fuel industry to secure broad liability waivers that would exempt them from responsibility for the harms caused by their products.
This push back makes the role of courts even more consequential. When political institutions retreat, courts often become the last place where scientific evidence, statutory obligations, and constitutional protections are still meaningfully weighed.
2026 matters
The year ahead will be a test of climate accountability. It will test whether international climate and human rights law continue to shape decisions in national courts, whether courts in the United States allow accountability cases to finally be heard on the evidence rather than delayed by technical fights over jurisdiction, and whether courts can serve as a stabilizing force as political efforts to weaken climate protections grow.
Courts are not perfect. They move slowly and face real limits. But they remain one of the few places where evidence still matters, where legal duties can still be enforced, and where communities can insist that climate harms be taken seriously.
Climate litigation is growing, and it needs thoughtful people to engage with it. The UCS Science Hub for Climate Litigation is closely tracking these trends, the new cases that are being filed, and the decisions that are shaping what accountability looks like in practice. If you want to stay informed and be part of this work, sign up for our newsletter and consider getting involved in our community of experts and advocates. The story of climate accountability is still being written, and we need more voices in the pages ahead.