UNEP report records 3,099 climate cases across 55 national jurisdictions

**UNEP's fourth Global Climate Litigation Report, released October 3, 2025, recorded 3,099 climate-related cases across 55 national jurisdictions and 24 international bodies as of June 30, 2025. The rising use of courts to enforce climate accountability heightens litigation and greenwashing exposure for Indian states and corporations. **

The fourth edition of the UN Environment Programme's Global Climate Litigation Report, released October 3, 2025, recorded a cumulative 3,099 climate-related cases across 55 national jurisdictions and 24 international or regional courts, tribunals or quasi-judicial bodies as of June 30, 2025. The report highlighted urgency because current national plans are projected to limit warming only to 2.6 degrees Celsius, far above the Paris goal of 1.5 degrees, while global greenhouse gas emissions are projected to rise 11.3 percent above 2010 levels and governments plan to produce more than double the allowed fossil fuels.

States and large private corporations are the primary targets of this litigation, with most cases originating in the Global North. Plaintiffs introduced new legal theories to challenge corporate greenwashing and misleading carbon offset programmes, while courts used attribution science to link specific emissions to local disasters and increasingly defined climate harms as breaches of human rights obligations. Indian companies making climate and carbon offset claims face growing greenwashing-litigation exposure, and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights affirmed state and corporate duties, signalling tightening judicial scrutiny relevant to global businesses.

Indian companies should review climate and carbon offset claims to reduce greenwashing-litigation risk, ensuring marketing and disclosures are scientifically supportable as courts increasingly accept attribution science. Entities should monitor the growth of climate jurisprudence across 55 jurisdictions and the counter-trend of anti-climate lawsuits challenging environmental regulations. Companies and governments should anticipate that courts may impose binding obligations and disclosure requirements, and should strengthen climate governance to deter litigation while aligning with evolving human-rights-based climate accountability standards.

Key figure — Cumulative climate cases recorded: 3,099 across 55 national jurisdictions (as of June 30, 2025)