By Yusuf Khan
A group of more than 100 Filipinos are suing British oil-and-gas giant Shell, claiming that its historical contribution to climate change from fossil-fuel production was a significant factor in causing a supertyphoon that battered the country four years ago.
The storm, which hit the Philippines in December 2021, caused the deaths of more than 400 people and nearly $1 billion in damage. Alongside the lives lost, hundreds of thousands were made homeless and lost their livelihoods.
"We worked hard all our life, we had built our house and in just a few hours it was gone," said Trixy Elle, who survived the typhoon and is one of the claimants in the case. Elle said she had lost her home and was no longer able to fish, her primary source of income, as her boat was destroyed during the storm. "You feel hopeless and helpless, you have nothing," she said, adding that she had to take out large loans to rebuild her house and livelihood.
The group is bringing the case against Shell to a court in London, where it is headquartered, but will be applying Filipino law and it will aim to recoup the losses incurred from property damage, personal injury, bereavement, psychological trauma and loss of earnings.
The claimants argue that Shell has known for decades that burning fossil fuels contributes to climate change and has campaigned to undermine the scientific consensus on the issue.
Shell described the claim as baseless, saying that the suit wouldn't help tackle climate change. The company received a letter before court action in October from London law firm Hausfeld and Co., on behalf of the claimants, which notified the company of the impending lawsuit.
"The suggestion that Shell had unique knowledge about climate change is simply not true. The issue and how to tackle it has been part of public discussion and scientific research for many decades," Shell's spokesperson said. "This claim also overlooks the benefits energy brings and the decades of choices made by governments, businesses and consumers that have shaped our energy system."
The claimants are being supported by Greenpeace Philippines, the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center, the Philippine Movement for Climate Justice and British environmental advocacy group Uplift.
The effects of climate change have been acutely felt in Southeast Asia this year, with typhoons and hurricanes hitting Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Thailand recently, with huge losses of life and property in those countries as well. The death toll in Indonesia alone has approached 1,000.
The Filipino case follows a number of lawsuits, including others against Shell, where civil groups have taken action against companies for their perceived role in contributing to climate change.
The claimants are aiming to use what is known as attribution science, whereby a company's contribution to global warming is estimated using historical output. In this case, it is gauged that Shell accounts for slightly over 2% of global emissions derived from fossil fuels, while the Philippines has contributed to just 0.2%, according to the claimants.
Despite there being many oil-and-gas companies in the world, Uplift's environmental lawyer Tessa Khan said Shell was chosen because it is one of the largest and because it had prior knowledge of the role its production played in contributing to climate change. Shell disputes it had unique knowledge.
Khan added that "In general people take these cases on if there is a reasonable prospect of success." She said previous litigation against tobacco companies were helpful references for climate litigation.
Joy Reyes, a climate litigation researcher at the Grantham Institute, said that increasingly courts are taking into account climate science and creating a connection between companies and their liabilities. "It's about how well you are able to communicate this in front of a judge," she said.
Reyes highlighted a recent case in Germany, where a Peruvian farmer Saúl Luciano Lliuya attempted to sue RWE for its historic role in contributing to climate change and demanded the German fossil-fuel producer pay for climate mitigation against flooding in his region. Lliuya lost the case, but the judge ruled that corporate liability for climate-related harm is possible in principle.
This created a precedent where fossil-fuel producers could be sued by groups outside of their jurisdictional boundaries. Reyes added that even though Lliuya didn't win, the case helped to create public discourse around the topic, which could change policy in the future.
Last year, Shell overturned a 2021 ruling that mandated the company cut its global carbon emissions by 45% by the end of 2030 compared with its 2019 levels. The 2024 ruling was largely seen as a win for Shell, though the judge did say the company had a special responsibility to cut emissions as a big fossil-fuel producer but not to a specific legal target.
That case was brought by Dutch environmental group Milieudefensie, which this year sued Netherlands-based ING on allegations that the banking giant wasn't doing enough to tackle climate change. ING said Milieudefensie's claims were "unrealistic and unreasonable," adding that it was confident in its climate approach at the time of the suit.
Typhoon survivor Elle said she hoped that bringing forward the suit would give voice to the world's poorest, who have felt the brunt of extreme weather more strongly in recent years. "We exist. We are the ones most affected by the climate crisis," she said. "If we, the small people, do this big action everyone knows that no small action will be wasted."
Write to Yusuf Khan at yusuf.khan@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 11, 2025 11:18 ET (16:18 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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