Climate Plaintiffs Push New Cases Forward Despite Year of Losses

Advocates seeking to hold major oil and gas companies liable for climate change damages will continue to up the pace of litigation in 2026, undeterred by a mounting series of state court losses in 2025, according to court watchers and attorneys.

State judges in Maryland, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and other local jurisdictions quashed multiple climate tort lawsuits in 2025, largely ruling that plaintiffs weren’t able to attribute harms from emissions within their state borders.

This trend of state-level dismissals will likely continue to grow, “especially because the critical mass of cases dismissing these climate lawsuits must be grappled with by any state court that wants to reach an opposite conclusion,” George Mason University law professor Donald Kochan said in an email.

Despite the setbacks, city, state, and county plaintiffs who are affected by severe climate impacts continue to file lawsuits, and are closely watching the outcome of the two climate tort lawsuits in Hawaii and Colorado that are moving toward potentially landmark trials. The US Supreme Court is also considering whether to address the question of whether these types of cases are fit for state courts, as raised in a Boulder, Colo., petition.

Baltimore, Anne Arundel County, and Annapolis, Md., are just a few examples of plaintiffs who are also appealing their state-level dismissals, though judges so far seem skeptical about resurrecting the cases.

Keeping climate accountability in the public eye through these long-running legal disputes is ultimately part of the strategy, according to Michael Showalter, partner at ArentFox Schiff LLP.

“In some sense, their play is to change beliefs and viewpoints about the law whether they win or lose,” Showalter said. “The longer the story goes, the better for that cause.”

This is especially true under the Trump administration, which has been quashing climate regulation and openly refuting established science about global warming.

Evolving Cases

Climate tort lawsuits have proceeded through nearly every level of the state and federal judicial system since 2015. Plaintiffs in these cases claim oil and gas companies, including Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., and BP PLC, spent years deceiving the public about how their products contribute to climate change in order to sell more product.

Plaintiffs compare this litigation to the massive legal push against Big Tobacco in the late ‘90s, which held major cigarette companies liable for misleading the public about the harms of smoking.

Oil majors refute these climate claims, countering the lawsuits are hiding policy-making motives and would impose widespread liability for global emissions that should be under federal purview.

The lawsuits originally aimed to hold energy companies liable for climate change-induced public nuisance, but the litigation quickly morphed into fraud cases and continues to evolve.

“Creativity has been the name of the game for climate advocates,” Kochan said. “I expect them to attempt to pivot, constantly trying to find ways around the roadblocks presented by the rigors of the law.”

That legal pivot is already occurring in a Washington federal district court, where two homeowners have filed a novel class action that ties rising insurance rates to energy sector climate claims.

The plaintiffs, led by firm Hagens Berman, say their premiums have risen by 51% in the last six years due to severe climate impacts worsened by oil and gas company misinformation about their products’ harms.

“Plaintiffs and the putative class do not seek to limit, cap, or enjoin the production and sale of fossil fuels by Defendants, or anyone else,” according to the complaint. “Instead, they seek only to recover damages that are attributable to the Defendants’ unlawful and deceptive conduct.”

Exxon Mobil, Shell Oil, Chevron, BP, ConocoPhillips, and the American Petroleum Institute are defendants in the action filed at the US District Court for the Western District of Washington.

This and similar lawsuits “are a coordinated campaign against an industry that powers everyday life,” according to a statement from American Petroleum Institute general counsel Ryan Meyers.

“We continue to believe that climate policy belongs in Congress, not a patchwork of courtrooms,” Meyers said in a statement.

As court watchers wait to see how more longstanding climate torts play out, Showalter said he expects more to come in the class action space.

“The fact is it’s just such a big issue that isn’t going anywhere, and it’s also an issue that people latch on to when people are frustrated about the lack of regulation in a space,” Showalter said. “I think there’s kind of a broad consumer sentiment that’s been there for a long time.”