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The climate movement is turning to courts to hold corporations and governments accountable for their role in causing the climate crisis. The number of cases filed each year has nearly tripled since the Paris Agreement in 2015. With courts becoming vital battlegrounds, civil society organizations (CSOs) play a key role, pushing legal cases forward and ensuring public engagement in the critical climate debate. 

The disconnect is terrifyingly stark. Last week, the Guardian newspaper reported that the “World’s top climate scientists expect global heating to blast past 1.5C target”, with the planet heading for at least 2.5C of warming “with disastrous results for humanity."

The oil giant Shell spends millions of dollars each year to anticipate the future to try and predict the unpredictable. In a corporate game of crystal-ball gazing, Shell likes to play the long game, looking decades into the future to predict upcoming geopolitical or technological trends.

Amongst the barrage of near-constant lousy news on the climate, from record rain bombs and flooding to relentless heat domes and wildfires, comes historic great news.

Its that time of year again with the annual UN climate meeting, called the conference of the Parties, or COP, just a couple of weeks away. This year’s meeting, COP27, will take place from 6-18 November 2022 at the luxury resort of in Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt.

The history of Shell on the African continent is wrapped in a vortex of controversy that stretches back decades. However, last week, in a significant victory, a High Court in South Africa ruled that Shell’s exploration right to conduct seismic surveys on the so-called “Wild Coast” of the country was granted unlawfully.

In 2017, Esther Kiobel and three other widows of the Ogoni 9, brought a new legal case against Shell in the Netherlands for complicity in murdering their husbands. And today was judgement day in the Hague. A day for hope. A day of dreams. However, those dreams were to be shattered. But this is not the end of the fight.

Embedded into the story of the struggle against Big Oil in Ecuador is the American lawyer: Steven Donziger. His story adds another layer of torrid injustice in the fight to hold Big Oil accountable. His story needs to be told.

In the latest setback for the oil giant, Shell has had to terminate the contract for the seismic ship that was due to undertake highly controversail exploration off South Africa's wild coast, after a court ruled at the end of December that Shell had not adequately consulted the local community.

The UK Supreme Court has ruled that two Nigerian communities – of more than 50,000 people - can bring their legal claims for clean-up and compensation against Royal Dutch Shell and its Nigerian subsidiary in the English courts.