3. Remedies

1. OVERVIEW

This Section outlines the evolving legal strategies and obstacles encountered in pursuing pecuniary remedies in corporate climate litigation across 17 case-study countries.

Pecuniary remedies awarded thus far involve both compensatory damages (in Canada, China, and Australia) and punitive measures through fines (in the US and India). Emerging cases reflect a growing trend towards seeking diverse forms of compensation and accountability for climate-related damages. These efforts include claiming "climate damages" for deforestation as an independent category of damages (in Brazil), demanding funding for climate change adaptation (in the US) and expanding the scope of climate-related damages to cover moral harm (in France). Moreover, legal developments in the US and Australia have shown initiatives to levy financial penalties on directors and officers for failing to fulfill their climate-related fiduciary responsibilities.

There is an absence of reported cases or success in claiming pecuniary remedies in several jurisdictions. The former is generally attributed to case dismissals due to lack of merit or procedural issues. The latter might indicate a possible shortfall in the legal frameworks, especially in providing financial remedies for climate-related damages and accurately calculating them. Furthermore, the inadequacy of monetary remedies to comprehensively address climate change's extensive consequences underscores corporate climate litigation's inherent limitations.