This story was produced by The Xylom, a nonprofit news outlet covering the world’s most pressing health and environmental disparities, and co-published by Grist. Subscribe to The Xylom’s newsletter here.
In December 2021, Super Typhoon Rai, equivalent to a Category 5 hurricane, struck Batasan Island in Bohol, Philippines. Fearing for their safety, Trixy Elle, her husband, their two children, and her father ventured into the storm, clinging to each other for support.
By the next morning, the house Elle and her husband had painstakingly built over the years was destroyed, along with much of the island. Left with nothing but their clothes, the family endured dire conditions, resorting to eating livestock killed by the storm.
“As a mother, it was up to me to find ways to feed my family,” Elle, a fish vendor, shared with The Xylom. “It got to the point where we were eating dead chickens, dead pigs. We got to that point because the government’s response took so long.”
Elle, 35, felt a profound sense of injustice. The typhoon, known locally as Odette, impacted 10.6 million people in the Philippines, resulting in over 400 deaths and displacing 1.4 million individuals. She questioned why communities like hers, which contribute minimally to the climate crisis, suffer the most. “Why are we the ones struggling the most?” she asked.
This question drove her to seek climate justice. In December 2025, 67 typhoon survivors filed a lawsuit against Shell at the Royal Courts of Justice. They claimed that Shell’s historical emissions exacerbated climate change, worsening disasters like Rai, and sought compensation. Shell did not respond to The Xylom’s requests for comment.
The plaintiffs also claimed that Shell had been aware of the threats climate change posed to vulnerable communities since the 1960s and that its operations had exacerbated these risks. Scientists agree that climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of storms like Rai.
The lawsuit is considered the first civil case to directly link a major fossil fuel company to deaths and injuries caused by climate impacts in the Global South.
Asia lags in climate litigation
Over the past decade, climate litigation has risen globally, yet the Global South, home to many of the most climate-vulnerable communities, accounts for less than 10 percent of these cases.
By mid-2025, 3,099 climate change cases had been initiated, with nearly two-thirds originating in the United States, according to the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. Outside the U.S., Europe leads with 32 percent of cases, while Asia and Africa are underrepresented at 6 percent and 2 percent, respectively.
“I remember years ago people would say climate litigation would never take off in Asia because it’s not part of the Asian culture to fight poverty and … to litigate,” Jolene Lin, director of the Asia-Pacific Centre for Environmental Law, said.
Lin refutes this notion, arguing that the primary barriers to climate litigation are weak legal systems.
“In Asia, there are many jurisdictions where judicial corruption is a problem [as well as] the lack of judicial independence,” Lin said. Many judges across the region are still unfamiliar with climate litigation and tend to shy away from such cases, she added.
Another challenge is the shrinking space for activism. In several countries, restrictions on free speech and association make it harder to organize, campaign, and bring cases to court.
Still, more people across Asia are turning to the courts. Lin described 2024 as a “particularly meaningful year” for climate litigation in the region.
That year, South Korea’s Constitutional Court ruled that parts of the country’s Carbon Neutrality Act were unconstitutional because they failed to protect the rights of future generations. The case was filed by the environmental organization Youth 4 Climate Action in South Korea, a youth-led movement that leads climate strikes and advocates for clean energy.
Alongside this, the Supreme Court of India recognized protection from the adverse impacts of climate change as a fundamental constitutional right. It stemmed from efforts to protect a critically endangered bird, the Great Indian Bustard, amid concerns that the birds were being killed by collisions with overhead power transmission lines linked to expanding renewable energy infrastructure.
Similar legal challenges are now emerging elsewhere in Asia. In January, a Malaysian climate watchdog sued the federal government in a first-of-its-kind greenwashing case. The complaint alleges a fossil fuel company falsely marketed a fossil fuel-based product as “carbon neutral.”
Win or lose, the case matters. As Malaysia’s first climate litigation, it will test how judges interpret climate obligations under existing laws and expose where resistance lies, which will create a roadmap for future cases, said Kuberan Hansrajh Kumaresan, head of legal advocacy at Malaysia-based environmental watchdog RimbaWatch.
In April, Malaysian youths sued the government over deforestation, asking the court to enforce the country’s pledge to maintain at least 50 percent forest cover. They argue continued forest loss threatens generations to come.
“My peers are losing hope for a decent future. It feels like we are more and more out of control of our lives. We cannot sit and continue to watch our government risk our future with every tree they cut down,” Amira Aliya, the youngest applicant in the case, said in a statement.
Cases abroad
Plaintiffs are also increasingly filing cases outside their home countries. The Super Typhoon Rai survivors filed their case in the United Kingdom because Shell is headquartered there. This is a strategic move, as according to Jefferson Chua, a campaigner with Greenpeace Philippines, courts in jurisdictions like the U.K. have more developed climate jurisprudence and stronger mechanisms for assessing corporate responsibility.
Similar cases have increasingly been filed outside plaintiffs’ home countries. For example, in 2023, four residents of Pari Island in Indonesia — where rising sea levels have caused persistent flooding — filed a litigation against the construction company Holcim. They are asking the Swiss cement giant to cut its emissions by 69 percent by 2040, relative to 2019 levels, as well as to compensate for damages already incurred and fund flood protection measures. The Cantonal Court of Zug in Switzerland admitted the case in December last year.
“[We] don’t contribute to island damage, but our island is now threatened by tidal floods and will be submerged because of the company’s activity,” said Arif Pujianto, a 55-year-old resident of Pari Island.
Ibu Asmania, also a plaintiff in the case against Holcim, said they have the right and the responsibility to protect their island because the place where their families are born is at stake.
The case is still in early stages, but it has already had ripple effects. It has been cited in an Australian challenge to a coal mine permit, and in Switzerland, major commercial law firms have issued alerts to corporate clients warning of the legal risks associated with high emissions, said Johannes Wendland, a legal advisor at HEKS-EPER Swiss Church Aid, which supports the Pari plaintiffs.
Justice in a changing climate
Lin expects a continued rise in climate lawsuits in Asia as awareness grows that the window to act on climate change is narrowing. She also anticipates more cases focused on “loss and damage,” with plaintiffs seeking compensation for climate-related harms.
The rise in climate litigation reflects a broader strategy of seeking accountability on multiple fronts. “This is a very powerful tool for affected communities in the fight for climate justice, but it’s not the only tool,” Wendland said. “It’s not a silver bullet.”
Beyond setting legal precedents, these cases are also creating space for affected communities to be heard and to act.
“What we really want is to inspire other communities to say that this is actually possible,” Greenpeace Philippines’ campaigner Chua said. “We can hold big companies like Shell accountable. And that’s something that even if it takes time, it will take years to do it [and] it’s still possible.”
For litigants like Elle, the fight is about the future.
“That’s what I hope I can do, even though I’m just an ordinary person,” she said. “If one day my grandchildren ask me what I did for nature, at least I have an answer: I fought for your future.”
