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Over the past decade, Australia has become one of the world's busiest jurisdictions for climate litigation, with dozens of new filings and judgments each year touching everything from coal approvals to superannuation marketing.1
A new generation of cases now targets duties of care, human rights obligations, and the integrity of climate disclosures, rather than only attacking individual fossil fuel projects.23
Young people, First Nations leaders, bushfire survivors, and institutional investors are using the law to test whether governments and corporations can ignore escalating climate risk.15
Regulators such as ASIC and APRA, under pressure from global markets, are warning that climate risk is a core financial stability issue, not a niche environmental concern.4
At the same time, a series of high-profile rulings has drawn sharp lines around what courts will, and will not, do when asked to set climate policy from the bench.14
The result is a contested, rapidly evolving legal landscape, where every judgment sends signals to planners, investors, and communities about how far the law will stretch to meet the climate crisis.23
For regional Australia in particular, the outcomes of these cases will shape who bears the costs of fires, floods, and rising seas in the decades ahead.23
Australian climate litigation in context
Australia now ranks among the top jurisdictions globally for the number of climate-related cases, reflecting both its fossil-fuel-heavy economy and its acute exposure to climate impacts.23
Data from the University of Melbourne's Australian Climate Change Litigation database show that 46 climate-related judgments or new proceedings were recorded in 2021 alone, up from 31 in 2020 and 27 in 2019.23
These cases fall into categories that include project approvals, corporate accountability, constitutional and human rights claims, and actions aimed at expanding access to justice for climate-affected communities.
Behind the statistics sit repeated climate-linked disasters, including the Black Summer bushfires, coastal inundation in the Torres Strait, and intensifying flood cycles, which have supplied both plaintiffs and evidence of harm.15
Testing duty of care: Sharma and Pabai
One of the most closely watched cases of recent years was Sharma v Minister for the Environment, brought in the Federal Court by eight children. They argued that the Environment Minister owed them a duty of care when deciding whether to approve a coal mine expansion in New South Wales.14
In 2021, Justice Bromberg found at first instance that the Minister owed Australian children a duty to take reasonable care to avoid causing them physical harm from climate change when exercising powers under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. This novel ruling drew global attention.14
On appeal in March 2022, the Full Federal Court unanimously overturned that duty of care. It held that the statute could not be read as creating such an obligation. Recognising it would involve an impermissible step into high-level policy choices reserved for the executive and legislature.17
The judges did not disturb the factual findings about the seriousness of climate risk, but refused to extend negligence law to require the Minister to protect children from that risk when deciding project approvals.17
A similar duty-of-care argument surfaced in Pabai Pabai and Guy Paul Kabai v Commonwealth of Australia, a class action filed in the Federal Court on behalf of Torres Strait Islanders threatened by sea-level rise and erosion.21
The applicants alleged that the Commonwealth owed concurrent duties to set greenhouse gas targets consistent with the best available science and to fund adaptation measures, such as seawalls, to protect their islands and culture.21
In July 2025, Justice Wigney rejected the claim, finding that the Commonwealth did not owe them a duty of care. Even if it did, any additional emissions arising from inadequate targets would make only an extremely small, unmeasurable contribution to global temperature rise and associated harm.24
The ruling echoed the reluctance seen in Sharma to impose broad negligence duties on the federal government for global climate outcomes, even as the court accepted the seriousness of the risks confronting Torres Strait communities.27
Human rights and the Torres Strait
While Australian courts have so far declined to recognise a domestic duty of care in these cases, an international human rights body has reached a starkly different conclusion about the Commonwealth's obligations to Torres Strait Islanders.5
In September 2022, the United Nations Human Rights Committee found that Australia had violated the rights of a group of Torres Strait Islanders under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It had failed to take adequate adaptation and mitigation measures to protect them from climate impacts.5
The Committee held that Australia had breached rights including the right to culture and the right to be free from arbitrary interference with private life, family, and home, given the Islanders' deep spiritual connection to their land and the physical threats posed by rising seas and flooding.5
It directed Australia to provide effective remedies, including compensation, consultation with affected communities, and urgent measures to secure the long-term habitability of the islands, adding international pressure on domestic planners and policymakers.5
References
1. Trends in Australian Climate Litigation: 2021 – University of Melbourne
2. Sharma v Minister for the Environment – Environmental Law Australia
3. O'Donnell v Commonwealth of Australia – Equity Generation Lawyers
4. APRA's response to climate-related financial risks – APRA
7. Corporate governance update: climate change risk and disclosure – ASIC
8. Climate Change Class Action Relating to Australian Sovereign Bonds Permitted to Proceed – Jones Day
9. CPG 229 Climate Change Financial Risks – APRA Prudential Practice Guide
10. Sharma and others v Minister for the Environment – Climate Change Litigation Database
11. Bushfire Survivors Hail Landmark Legal Win on Climate – Environmental Defenders Office
12. ACCR expands landmark Federal Court case against Santos – ACCR
13. Sharma and others v Minister for the Environment – judgment summary
14. NSW Environment Protection Authority Court Case – Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action
15. Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility expands landmark case against Santos – EDO
16. Sharma v Minister for Environment – Equity Generation Lawyers
17. Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action Inc v Environment Protection Authority – Case summary
18. Greenwashing proceedings in Federal Court – ACCR
19. Pabai Pabai and Guy Paul Kabai v Commonwealth of Australia – Climate Change Litigation Database
21. ASIC sues Mercer for greenwashing – Peters & Peters
22. Australian and Pacific Climate Change Litigation Database – University of Melbourne
23. ASIC's first greenwashing case results in $11.3 million penalty against Mercer – ASIC media release
24. Climate Change Litigation – Law Society of NSW briefing paper
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